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Terry Rothermund lumbered to the front of a Douglas County courtroom to face the man who maimed him in November.
If not for a slight stutter step and the cane that he sometimes carries, courtroom observers might not have known that he lost both feet in a crash caused by a drunken driver on South 13th Street.
But that wasn't the only surprise from Rothermund in court this week.
Rothermund, 48, sat down next to a prosecutor, stared at the repeat drunken driver, Brian E. Grass, and talked to him for five minutes.
He shared with Grass that the two had attended the same school (Bryan High School), decades apart, and that he once was a “punk kid, too.”
He breezed through details of the pain — the 12 days in a coma, 31 in a hospital, the five months it took to walk again — that he's endured since losing both lower legs, just above the ankles.
He told Grass to quit drinking — just as Rothermund said he did 13 years ago — and to never drink and drive again.
And he told Grass that he forgave him.
Wide-eyed, the Bellevue man nodded his head repeatedly as Rothermund spoke to him.
Douglas County District Judge Russell Bowie absorbed it all, too — and changed his mind.
Bowie sentenced Grass, 21, to six months in jail and three years of probation — instead of the prison sentence the judge had planned. Grass, who also must forfeit his driver's license for five years, had faced up to five years in prison for driving drunk and causing serious injury.
Bowie told Grass he could thank Rothermund for the change of sentence, even as prosecutors and Rothermund's friends struggled with whether Grass should receive the benefit of the Omaha man's graciousness.
“Everyone disagrees with me,” Rothermund said. “But prison time? What's that going to do? It's not going to give me my legs back.
“I feel for him, which I shouldn't, but I do. He needs to come correct and get sober and turn his life around.”
Rothermund knows a little something about life changes.
On Nov. 18, Rothermund was driving south on 13th Street. He dropped off a friend at Starsky's bar near Atlas Street — and pulled a U-turn to head back north on 13th Street.
Out of nowhere, the headlights of a 2002 Dodge Durango rocketed at him.
Investigators later determined that Grass was driving more than 80 mph when he T-boned Rothermund's truck, sending it “spinning like a pinball,” Rothermund said.
The truck came to rest some 70 yards away. Rothermund said his upper body shot through the back window, while his left leg was severed at the ankle and his right leg dangled inside.
Tests showed that Grass' blood-alcohol content was .20 percent — 2½ times the legal limit of .08.
Rothermund was taken to Creighton University Medical Center in critical condition.
His injury list resembled the rundown for an entire hospital wing: what remained of two crushed shin bones and ankles, a broken left thigh bone, a broken left hip, a broken pelvis, a broken jaw, a broken bone in his neck, broken ribs and a ruptured diaphragm.
A day after the crash, Scott Nielsen went to visit his longtime friend. The normally tall and lanky Rothermund was so bloated he “looked like he weighed 300 pounds.” He was wrapped in braces. Tubes snaked out of his body.
“It was awful,” he said. “I didn't know if he was going to make it. And I didn't know if it'd be worth it if he did make it.
“But that kid's got a ton of determination.”
Three days after waking from his coma, Rothermund said, he decided to test out his “stumps.” He climbed out of bed and plopped down on what was left of his legs. He promptly fell on his face.
Doctors told him he wouldn't walk for at least a year.
Rothermund had other plans. Each day, he would slap high fives with the staff and other patients as he began the work of relearning how to walk.
After five months, he was walking. This week, 10 months after the crash, he carried his cane “for effect” as he ambled in front of the judge.
Now, he can't sit still. He shows strangers how he can jump on his artificial legs — joking that he has “Larry Bird disease” because he can't get more than 2 inches off of the ground.
Nielsen, who owns a lawn care company, watched this summer as Rothermund mowed a lawn. Rothermund quipped that he didn't have to worry about cutting off his feet.
And in court, he reassured Grass with this: “I had ugly feet anyway.”
Rothermund then peppered the 21-year-old with his thoughts, as if he were talking to him at a lunch counter.
“Alcohol is not the way.”
“I just can't see how you got going that fast, coming up over that hill.”
“I don't wish nobody jail time, but you need to know, it screwed my life up.”
“I just hope you don't do something like this to someone again.”
Prosecutor Matt Kuhse had similar concerns. Kuhse noted that Grass had a previous drunken driving conviction, for a June 2005 arrest.
Grass apologized to two families — “mine and the other guy's.” His attorney, Assistant Douglas County Public Defender Tim Burns, said Grass was “deeply remorseful.”
Kuhse, however, noted that Grass admitted to having used marijuana and alcohol since the crash.
“He could have killed Mr. Rothermund,” Kuhse said. “That should have been enough to stop him, cold turkey.”
Others also weren't so sure about cutting Grass a break. After the hearing, Nielsen folded his arms across his chest and shook his head as he leaned against a courthouse railing.
“The bad thing is, he didn't even know your name,” Nielsen told Rothermund. “The sincerity, I just don't know if it's there.”
Rothermund said he thinks it is. He said Grass had a “look of fear” during the hearing. Judge Bowie told Grass that he would sentence him to the maximum five years in prison if he violated his probation.
Cyndee McCarthy, victims' advocate for MADD Nebraska, knows something about having to recover from a devastating crash. In 2003, a repeat drunken driver plowed into her car near Springfield, killing her husband, Tom, and critically injuring McCarthy.
“At times, you don't even want to get out of bed,” she said. “But Terry is one of the most resilient people I've seen. He made a point to show up to one hearing in shorts, his legs on display for everyone. I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, he may be the most upbeat person I've been around.' ”
Rothermund admits to down times but said he tries not to wallow in them. The crash cost him his house and his job as a painter. He said he still hates that he has to “put on my feet” to walk to the bathroom — or plop in a wheelchair to shower. Or that his legs swell at day's end.
He now works as a dispatcher for a trucking company — a job offered to him by a friend and former boss. And he said his friends and family, including his parents, four brothers and sister, have been his rock.
“I don't feel sorry for myself,” he said. “I've got no choice. People come out of these things a lot worse. Dead. Paralyzed. Me? I got no complaints.”
With that, he rose on his artificial feet and took several long strides across the courthouse rotunda.
His cane never touched the ground.
Contact the writer:
444-1275, todd.cooper@owh.com
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