By Kathy McCarthy
Reprinted from The Seattle Times, March 23, 1983
In the end, it was the battered body of hydroplane driver John Walters that dictated the decision his wife, his elder daughter and the doctor who "saved his life" hoped he would make — he quit racing.
"My back injuries make me so much more vulnerable that on a minor accident, or a good hard bump and I could very possibly never walk again," Walters said.
"I've been luck twice now . . . but I'm able to look back and see just how close I was to not making it at all."
So Walters, 30, is turning from a lifelong dream of unlimited hydroplane racing to build a new future with employer, Pay 'n Pak this time as a management trainee.
Pay 'n Pak boss Dave Heerensperger left the sport before his driver, announcing within days of Walters' near-fatal crash last August, that Pay 'n Pak no longer would field an unlimited boat.
A Lake Washington collision between the Pay 'n Pak and the Executone put Walters in a hospital for two months and in a body cast for six.
Walters' back was broken in three places, is right elbow "scrambled" and his left leg had to be reassembled with metal pins and wire. He had a respirator for a week and suffered brain damage.
Fearful that he would not survive the succession of operations he needed immediately, a team of doctors at Harborview Medical Center undertook a surgical marathon to fix everything at once.
"They put me under on time and did all of the surgeries," Walters recalled. "It was like putting the straw man back together in the Wizard of Oz."
Walters still faces three more operations on his leg and elbow. He probably will never regain more than 50 percent mobility in the elbow, because of calcium deposits.
And the man who made a living piloting boats at high speeds now is working to regain his car driver's license. His license was voided because of the brain damage. He must pass psychological tests and a physical driving demonstration to regain it.
Walters' tortuous recovery — he was freed from his body cast only a month ago — gave him an in-depth medical education he finds fascinating, but would't want to repeat."
"I've gained a vast amount of knowledge about medicine . . . and how the body can repair itself even after you abuse it so badly."
It also helps with the homework for daughters Katrina, 11, and Maciva, 9. "I know the names of almost every bone in the skeletal system," Walters said.
Katrina and Walters' wife, Arlene, were among those who let Walters know even before his last accident that they would like him to stop driving.
Walters, 1981 rookie of the year on the unlimited circuit, survived two spectacular crashes in his 2½-year career, the first an eye-popping "blowover" in 1980 at Pasco.
Katrina told her father after Dean Chenoweth's death earlier last August that she hoped "'We can finish out the season without nobody else getting hurt and then I'd like you to stop,'" he recalled.
Arlene says she wanted her husband to stop driving ever since Bill Muncey's death in 1981. "I couldn't ever say, 'You're going to quit.' But he knew how I felt."
Dr. Michael Oreskovich, who headed the Harborview medical team that "reassembled" Walters after the crash, put it even more bluntly in a letter to his patient.
"You and Arlene thanked me and my team for 'saving your life,'" Oreskovich wrote. "The ultimate gratitude could come in the form of a statement that you will never drive a hydroplane again."
Walters' traumas did not stop when his hospital stay ended. While he was still hobbled by crutches and a body cast, Walters' garage door fell on him as he left his car after an evening dinner with his parents. Back to Harborview for the evening.
Nor have the family traumas been limited to Walters. His wife required a gall bladder operation and shoulder surgery during his convalescence.
"John got to take care of me," she said.
Walters is disappointed he never will win a national championship, but there is no bitterness about the crash.
When his health permits, Walters will begin management training to become a store manager with Pay 'n Pak.
"There isn't really any solid or stable future in hydroplanes," Walters said. "With Pay 'n Pak, the sky's the limit. I can go as far as I have the ability and desire to go."
But Walters, who has been fascinated by hydroplanes since he was his first race at age 9 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, does not plan to turn his back on the sport.
Walters, a hull specialist, said the boats are "exceeding their design limitations by going so fast." The ultimate solution is better design, the best interim solution is limiting the course size — to a maximum of two miles, he said.
Walters said his fellow drivers share his safety concerns but often cannot voice those opinions because of pressure from owners and/or sponsors.
Walters says he hopes he can act as a representative for active drivers and lobby the cause of safety to the Unlimited Racing Commission.
"There is no question the drivers want to be as safe as possible," he said. "We all realized going in there were a fair amount of risks involved, but anything we can do to decrease those ricks is what the drivers want."
