Andy and Elizabeth Meier are pictured with their children Frankie, 5, Sam, 14, and Madeline, 12, in Andy Meier’s room at Froedtert Memorial Hospital. Meier is recuperating from a bus crash in Bosnia June 11 that injured 27 Americans. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)
WAUWATOSA — “There’s not a reason on Earth that I’m alive, other than God’s mercy,” said Andy Meier, while sitting in a wheelchair in his room at Froedtert Memorial Hospital.
Paralyzed from the waist down, Andy, 53, and his family, his wife, Elizabeth, 46, and children, Sam, 14, Madeline, 12, and Frankie, 5, were traveling to Medjugorje in Bosnia when their tour bus full of pilgrims from the Milwaukee Archdiocese was hit by a semi trailer June 11.
Fr. Rick Wendell, associate pastor of Holy Angels in West Bend, was the only priest on the bus. He was pinned underneath Andy Meier, and was freed with the help of fellow passengers and passers-by. Immediately following the accident, Fr. Wendell - in spite of a broken and dislocated right wrist - anointed the dazed passengers and relied on his training as an EMT to help the injured before the first ambulance arrived 30-45 minutes after the crash. He had one corrective surgery while in Kosovo and another when he returned to Wisconsin. His memory of June 11 details the accident.
Pilgrims from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee are helped from their bus after an accident in Tarcin, Bosnia June 11. Twenty-seven Americans and the Bosnian bus driver were injured in the accident. (Submitted photos by Suzanne Tennies).
Fr. Wendell was sitting at the front of the bus beside 5-year-old Frankie Meier.
“It was raining and we were going on a curve turning left and then I saw the tractor trailer semi break loose and then everything went into slow motion,” he said. “We impacted the trailer and everything went dark. I think we were inside the trailer so it obliterated the view and then there was a grinding, crunching sound which was us going through the guardrail. We went down the embankment and we started to turn on our right side. We tipped past a 90-degree angle and landed on the side.
“I thought we were going to be OK because we were sliding along on our right side, but as the river curved away, we slammed into the other side of the embankment, and that’s when everyone went flying and the whole front of the bus was gone.
“Andy Meier stood up to push his little boy to the floor, out of harm’s way, and Andy came flying over and his head and shoulders took my hand out the window and the embankment was right there. He hit his head on the embankment. He was buried to his ears....”
Father’s instinct protected son
In his hospital room at Froedtert, Andy Meier recalled the accident.
“What I tried to do was go across the aisle and push Frankie down so he wouldn’t take a hit,” he explained. “That’s my last memory. A father’s instinct is to protect (his) child.”
The dilapidated bus rested in a river as rain pelted the bus and its passengers.
“Being trapped in there and the water rising, and you don’t know how high the water is going to come, you wonder if that’s the way you’re going to go,” said Fr. Wendell. “I never felt scared for some reason, but it does bring you to a place where you go, ‘What’s important in life?’”
When the bus came to an “abrupt, screeching halt,” as Fr. Wendell put it, he remembers the scared group of passengers who remained calm and under control. He quickly began anointing the Catholic pilgrims, though he didn’t have oils with him.
“There’s a great comfort in coming out and anointing people,” he explained. “I didn’t have oils with me, but the Lord will sort that one out. Blessing people calms us down. We were doing our best spiritually and physically.”
Meier was close to death
A fellow passenger approached Fr. Wendell and said that Andy “felt like he’s going” so Fr. Rick rushed over to his side and again anointed him.
“I said, ‘Andy, your job right now is to stay with us.’ And he indeed did that. There were several days in Kosovo that we didn’t know if he was going to live or die,” said Fr. Wendell.
For Andy and the Meier family, the struggle was just beginning. After being transported to a university hospital in Kosovo, Andy spent several days in a drug-induced coma. When he was awoken, he complained about his eyesight, according to wife, Elizabeth.
“He said he could see Jesus, right there,” she said.
“Jesus never left me,” Andy said of the alabaster crucifix he said he saw in his hospital room. “It was fixed right above me on the wall and I could see it 24/7.”
First reaction was anger
Elizabeth admits that her first reaction to the accident was one of anger.
“Why would the Blessed Mother allow this?” she admits to thinking. “You wonder what the plan is. It’s a busload of faithful pilgrims and this happened.”
“God told me (Mary) protected us,” Andy told her. “She saved our lives.”
Andy sustained a long list of injuries and any one of them could’ve killed him. The broken back, the cracked skull, seven broken ribs, bleeding and swelling in the brain. The family maintains that it is clearly a miracle that he is alive.
“Out of the suffering any of us may have gone through, our number one hope is that if anything, this will motivate people to turn back to God,” Andy said. “If vocations can come out of this suffering, that’s the greatest gift.”
Since returning to Wisconsin, Andy’s life and the lives of his family have changed.
“Spiritually, I don’t think I’ve ever been stronger,” said Andy. “Physically, being a paraplegic stinks. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. But I’m doing well because I’ve adopted the principle concept of living just for today.”
Accident left Meier closer to God, family
“I’ve really emptied myself of what used to be important to me, worldly goods,” he explained. “All I have left is Christ. I’m a lot closer to God now, no doubt about it.”
The Meiers are hoping that Andy can return home in a few weeks. When that time comes, adjustments will need to be made to the family’s two-story Hartland home. The house must be made wheelchair-accessible, however, Elizabeth said Andy’s new bedroom would be the family’s dining room on the first floor. Andy is also anxious to get back to work. He is the president of Hydro Flo Products, Inc. and will need a handicap-accessible van so he can drive himself to and from his job.
While such a tragedy could tear a family apart, it has brought this family, and this couple, closer.
“I’ve never loved her more; she’s my bride,” said Andy of his wife with whom he will celebrate 17 years of marriage in August. “The joy I get when she walks into my room is overwhelming. It’s not complete when she’s not here. It’s different when the wife you love so much is there to pray with you.”
Most pilgrims visited Medjugorje
Most of the passengers eventually made their pilgrimage to Medjugorje, including Fr. Wendell, who has visited the site six times. He said his faith was “profoundly affected” during a trip years ago to Medjugorje, leading him to begin his path to priesthood, though he was engaged to be married. Much like his first trip to Medjugorje, Fr. Wendell said he feels that this trip also changed his life.
“I hope that my life will be forever changed for the positive, and that I remain grateful every day for being a priest and being able to serve God’s people, and for my own life,” he said. “God has chosen to preserve my life for some reason and maybe just being a priest is reason enough, but hopefully I can continue to remind people that God loves them and wants them to be happy and sends each day as a gift.”
‘Blessed Mother protected us’
Karen Wollner, 64, a member of Holy Angels, said she was fascinated by Medjugorje and jumped at the opportunity to make a pilgrimage.
“I did some research on Medjugorje and I’m so interested in it from reading about it,” she said. “I’m not sorry I went. I’d go back in a minute. Medjugorje is so calming and peaceful and prayerful.”
However, for Wollner, the journey to Medjugorje was anything but peaceful. During the accident, she flew from her seat and hit her head on the overhead compartment, slicing a six-inch laceration into her scalp. She said that during the accident she, as well as her fellow passengers, remained calm.
“I was very calm,” she said. “It’s amazing how much you think of while it’s happening. I was lifted off the seat and I thought, ‘Seatbelts would’ve been nice.’ I thought, ‘If I die, I’m not going to hell,’ so I wasn’t really worrying about that. Then it got quiet and it was over and I thought, ‘I’m fine.’ The Blessed Mother protected us all,” she said.
When rescuers and other passengers saw her head laceration and blood, they put her in a car and drove her to a first aid center. She was taken to a hospital in Kosovo, where she was stitched with no anesthesia.
“It was, at times, very primitive in the hospital,” she said. “The people are knowledgeable, but they don’t have the equipment or facilities. They’re very frugal with anesthetic.”
Much like the others on the trip, Wollner said her outlook has changed following the accident and her pilgrimage.
“I think we value people more, we value every day,” she said. “So many of us could’ve been dead. It’s miraculous that no one died. Walking down the street, I smile at people more. I try to see Jesus Christ in every person I see.”
While the Meier children crowd around their dad to take a photo, 14-year-old Sam sums up their feelings, “Our dad’s the greatest. We know he’d do anything for us.”
“God saved us all,” Elizabeth said. “Here we are alive to tell the story. God called us here; he is not going to abandon us. We have to trust.”
Editor's note: For updates on Andy Meier and his family, visit <www.prayforandy.com>.
