Four weeks after a terrible accident on a Wyoming highway left him in intensive care, Piedmont musician Max Becker is well enough to return home. “I’m so excited to be home soon,” Max wrote to the Exedra. “Thanks for all of your support.” Max is scheduled to fly home Friday from his Denver hospital in time to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with his family.
“We’re feeling super blessed that Max has been able to recover so well and so quickly,” said his mother Tami, who with her husband Mark has spent most of the past four weeks at their son’s bedside. “We can’t wait for him to be home.”
Max’s treatment will continue at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, but his release from the brain trauma center where he’s been since shortly after the accident is a positive sign for family and friends who have watched him struggle back from his injuries. “It will likely be a year before he fully recovers but he’s making good progress” says his dad Mark. “The broken shoulders make things tough physically for him, but he’s up and walking with a little help, and he’s doing well cognitively.”
He’s making good progress. He’s up and walking.
The October 28 accident happened on a desolate stretch of Interstate 80 as Max, Piedmont sound engineer Josh Berl, and photographer Natalie Somekh of Newport Beach, Ca. were driving from Oakland to Denver to meet Max’s bandmates for a tour date for their rock band, SWMRS.
Near the little town of Rawlins, Wyoming their van slid on ice and rolled over, leaving Josh with a broken arm and a severe gash to his head. Natalie was also injured but she managed to crawl out of the wrecked van and flag down help, quite possibly saving the lives of her car mates. Max got the worst of it. As the van flipped over he was shot through a window onto the highway median, fracturing both shoulders, several ribs, bruising a lung and a knee and suffering severe head trauma. After a week in intensive care he was transferred to Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colorado, for brain injury treatment. Josh and Natalie were released from the hospital relatively quickly and are recovering at home.
Max says he doesn’t remember the accident, and that is a blessing in a way, and he hopes Josh and Natalie don’t think about it much.
In the days immediately following the accident, one big morale booster came in the form of hundreds of get well cards sent by friends and fans brought by the bag full to Max’s hospital room. One by one the Beckers pinned them to the walls until they ran out of space.
Today the Becker home overlooking Dracena Park is buzzing with activity in anticipation of a Thanksgiving they will surely always remember. Says Mark Becker: “It’s a great community we live in.”