Cardington’s Tom Brandum comes home

By Eve­lyn Long -

The Card­ing­ton fire house with­out the fire engines in it, is a large vacant cav­ity but on August 18 it was filled with warmth, laugh­ter and a sense of thank­ful­ness because one of its fire­man had returned.

More than 300 friends, fam­ily, co-workers and col­leagues were on hand to wel­come Tom Bran­dum “home.” The event was a thank you from the Bran­dum fam­ily to all who had helped young Bran­dum dur­ing his recov­ery from the acci­dent that hap­pened on May 30.

On that date, Bran­dum, enroute home on his motor­cy­cle, from his job at the Edi­son Co-Op, was con­fronted by a pickup truck turn­ing left in front of him at a curve just north of Card­ing­ton. Bran­dum slid under the truck caus­ing the fuel tank to rup­ture and fire erupt, engulf­ing him in flames. Imme­di­ately, passers by stopped and ran to pull him from under the vehi­cle– among them were Dr. James Pro­th­man, DVM, Pam Meyer, Amy Lester, Earl Lin­der, James Bai­ley and Holly McMillen.

Calls were made to the EMS at both Mount Gilead and Card­ing­ton and the lat­ter arrived in a mat­ter of min­utes along with Card­ing­ton Fire Chief Jim Ullom. Bran­dum was take by Med-Flight heli­copter to OSU Hos­pi­tal where he was found to have sus­tained a bro­ken wrist, jaw, knee cap, nose and a basal skull fracture.

Dur­ing the next 63 days, 30 of them in ICU, he under­went 11 surg­eries and skin grafts, and was treated for infec­tion at one point. The plucky man returned home on August 1 escorted from I-71/61 by mem­bers of the Card­ing­ton Fire Depart­ment, whose mem­bers include his brother, Joey. He is cur­rently under­go­ing ther­apy at Mor­row County Hospital.

The Bran­dums hon­ored the six who helped save their loved on, by rec­og­niz­ing them with plaques and gift cards.

Doc and Karolyn Bran­dum, Tom’s par­ents, thanked all who helped in any­way dur­ing the time that their son was in the hos­pi­tal. Join­ing them with thanks were Tom’s broth­ers, Joey and Doug and their wives.

Doc said he and his wife were home when their son, Joey, called at 5:15 pm and said there was a wreck on “Levering’s Curve,” and “when we tried to call Tom and got no answer and know­ing that would be about the time he would be com­ing through there on his way home, we got in the car and went to the site.”

Amy Lester and her hus­band, Scott, were enroute to a ball game at Mount Gilead when they came upon the acci­dent. “I tried to get his shirt off,” she said, and she asked for water to pour over him. Pam Meyer, enroute home after work­ing in Card­ing­ton, saw a flash of fire and thought a car was on fire but when she got closer, she could see the acci­dent and called 911. A for­mer EMT, she helped to pull Bran­dum out, too, and stayed until the EMS came. Dr. James Pro­th­man, was also pass­ing by and stopped to help pull him from under the truck. Tom was wear­ing his hel­met at the time of the acci­dent. All stayed with him until he was flown out.

The Bran­dum fam­ily said this joy­ous occa­sion was one in which they wanted to thank every­one who had helped them with food, prayers, vis­its, encour­age­ment, etc.

They espe­cially thanked the Big Wal­nut Fire Depart­ment who had con­ducted a “Boot Drive,” rais­ing $1600 for the fam­ily. They thanked all who brought the food for the wel­come home party and directed spe­cial thanks to Doug West­brook, Howie’s BBQ Express. They also named the Card­ing­ton Fire Depart­ment, the Mount Gilead Fire Depart­ment, Squad 2 and EMS 9.

Tom’s mother, spent all but three nights at her son’s side and his father joined her on many of those nights.

Doc thanked all who prayed for their son and led prayer chains. He also thanked the Amer­i­can Legion Post 97 for loan­ing the tables for the event.

Grand­par­ents present included Jackie Bird of Chester­ville, who said ‘I had the same feel­ing ever since Karol called -‘God pro­vided the care he needed.’ I give God all the credit. I look for Tommy to be com­pletely well and I would like to thank every­one for their prayers and con­cerns. They’ve been a bless­ing to us.”

Grand­fa­ther Clay­ton Bran­dum said “I made sev­eral trips to see him and I want to thank all who prayed for him. I had friends and fam­ily from as far away as Florida pray­ing for him.”

Tom qui­etly greet­ing all who con­grat­u­lated him, said, “I have heart­felt thanks to all, espe­cially those first six on the scene.”

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Aug 29 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.