Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Sweet Home High School graduate Rick Rasmussen is undergoing therapy at a Denver convalescent hospital after being paralyzed in a catastrophic traffic accident last month.
Rasmussen, 37, the son of Kenneth and Sally Rasmussen of Sweet Home, was left a quadriplegic after his truck was struck by an oncoming car on Feb. 6 near his home in Springfield, Mo.
“The (other) driver reached down to do something, and it swerved into his lane,” said Sally Rasmussen.
Rick Rasmussen is married to fellow Sweet Home graduate Dawn Smith, daughter of Mike and Fonda Wilcox. They have five children: Micah, 18; Courtney, 16; Tiffani, 13; Spencer, 9; and Blaine, 7.
Sally Rasmussen said her son, who has an excavating business in Springfield, was towing a trailer behind his Dodge pickup when the other car tore down the side of the pickup, breaking the rear axle and tearing off the dual wheels, then slammed into the trailer, causing it to flip, which made the truck flip.
The accident happened on old Highway 66, on a straightaway about a mile from the Rasmussens’ small farm.
Though he was wearing a seatbelt, Rasmussen was ejected through the passenger window, injuring his neck, his mother said.
“He was alert through the whole thing, he remembers everything,” Sally Rasmussen said. “He could not move.”
The woman driving the other car walked away, she said.
Rasmussen was airlifted to St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, where his neck fractures were stabilized. He was moved March 1 to Craig Hospital in Denver, a facility that specializes in spinal injuries and once treated actor Christopher Reeves, where he is expected to stay 10 or 12 weeks, his mother said.
“The outlook is that he’ll have some use of his arms and hands,” she said. “Then he’ll return home.”
The Rasmussens live just outside of Springfield. They moved there in 1995 from Lebanon. Rick Rasmussen had worked at Santiam Supply and then at Morton International before their move.
Sally Rasmussen said the accident has taken its toll on the family.
“The kids are not taking it well,” she said. Family members are taking turns watching the children while their parents are in Denver.
She said her husband, Ken, plans to travel back to Missouri next month to build “a handicapped-accessible home” for the family.
Rasmussen also said that medical and living costs are going to be a problem because the other driver had “minimal” insurance “that was gone the first day.”
A fund to assist the family has been set up by the local PTA in Springfield, called the “Rasmussen Fund” at the Bank of Ash Grove, 218 N. Webster Ave., Ash Grove, MO, 65604.