"Tommy’s Gate"

The Son of Adventure, Part 2 -  By T.R. Willey

In May 0f 2002 my family had the opportunity to visit the island of Cuba for 10 days. We were there for a celebration being held in honor of the 60^th anniversary of the founding of the Cedars of Lebanon Seminary, located in the province of Pinar del Rio. My grandparents had founded the school in 1942, and miraculously the school has remained operational for most of the last 60 plus years. While there are many interesting stories of what went on those 10 days, one particular event will be etched in my mind forever.

We were on a bus with a mixture of visiting American representatives and Cuban nationals when my father told the driver to pull over. We all got off the bus and found ourselves at a large gated entrance to a chalet. It was a large stone archway with smaller flanking columns and a large wrought iron center gate. Two smaller iron gates were on either side inset between the stone columns. On the outside left column was an ornamental topper, but on the right side the topper was missing. I stood before the smaller right gate, almost 6 feet tall with its sharp, arrow shaped spikes, two of which were missing paint – the point of one slightly bent. I had heard about this gate all my life. But now, standing before it as my father began to tell the story, I was looking and listening through the lens of adulthood and the tale was new, fresh, real…

The locals still call it "Tommy’s Gate."

It was Christmas morning, 1945. Even in rural Cuba there was a joy and relief that the conflagration that had engulfed the world since September 1939 had finally come to an end. My grandparents had rented a chalet down the road from the seminary they had founded 3 years prior. It was a wonderful place with a miniature formal garden, a large yard, and stables for the horses. Friends were visiting from the States, and the kids were playing near the large entrance gate.

My father was 13 years old, and as the saying goes, "He was all boy." Tall, lanky with striking blue eyes, he had a streak of mischief and love for fun. When his dad Tom Sr. would take him to Havana, they would usually catch a movie. The first he saw in a theater was Casablanca, but the adventure serials were his favorites. He also loved airplanes, and would read all he could about the exploits of the daring fighter aces of the war – his favorites being the famed Flying Tigers in China, led by Clair Lee Chennault.

His fearlessness and love for adventure had already left some scars. His left arm had been broken at the elbow several years earlier when he had jumped off a roof and landed on a large boulder. The local doctor had set the arm incorrectly and when the cast was removed they realized that his forearm set 45 degrees off center, causing his arm to bend at an awkward angle. While on leave in the States an American doctor examined the arm and said they could try to reset the arm but with no guarantee that he would be able to use it again. Even at a strange angle the arm worked, so my dad agreed that he’d live with it as is.

This Christmas morning Tommy and his friends were down out the front gate, and against the protests of the girls in the group Tommy showing off his climbing abilities by climbing up the columns of the gate. He reached the top and sat down on the ornamental topper and began rocking on it like it was a horse. Suddenly he felt something crack beneath him. He tumbled toward his right – the sky spun. There was a sickening crunch and tearing sound and he was upright again. But something was wrong…

Tom Sr. and my grandmother Mabel were visiting with friends in the parlor when they heard the girls screaming. They rushed out of the house to see Tommy walking slowly up the driveway clutching his chest. Tom Sr. ran and picked him up and carried him into the house. He laid Tommy down on the white sheet they were using as a Christmas tree skirt. He was ashy white and bleeding.

"Daddy! No! I’ll mess up the sheet!"

Tom Sr. ignored his son’s protests and gently pulled Tommy’s arms away from his chest. His chest had been ripped open in two places – one wound was in the center and the other just under his right arm. Flecks of paint were visible in the wounds. The girls explained through their hysterical tears how Tommy had been sitting on top of the column when the topper broke off and he’d flipped over and landed on the spikes of the gate, impaling himself. In fear everyone had run, leaving him alone and dangling with his feet off the ground. With no one to help him down he had hooked his foot on to one of the rungs of the gate and pushed himself up and off.

Some neighbors who had been waiting at the bus stop near the house heard the commotion and came to see what was wrong. When they realized what had happened one of them ran back and persuaded the bus driver to drive to the house. Tom Sr. carried Tommy to the bus and along with Mabel they loaded up for the trip to the hospital. Once there the doctors took one look at the extensive damage and said there was nothing they could do – they were completely unequipped to handle such serious injuries. They cleaned the wounds the best they could and applied sulfa compresses to stop the bleeding and told my grandparents they had to get Tommy to Havana.

Havana was 119 miles away. Even today the roads are not smooth. When an ambulance was finally secured, Tommy was loaded in the back with Mabel to sit with him, and Tom Sr. sat in the front. Even though it was December the weather was warm and humid, making it sticky and uncomfortable in the back of the vehicle. Mabel tried to keep him cool and comfortable, but the bumpy roads and lack of air circulation made it excruciatingly painful for Tommy.

Then the worst happened – the ambulance broke down. Luckily Tom Sr. had a knack for mechanics and after 20 to 30 minutes they were running again. Before the trip was over the vehicle had broken down another four times – what should have been a 2 ½ hour trip became 4 (word was that on the return trip the ambulance lost a wheel and flipped over!). Their nerves were at the absolute breaking point when they finally arrived at the Anglo American Hospital in Havana.

Tommy was rushed to the emergency room and after examining his wounds the doctors present agreed that it was beyond their skill. "There is only one surgeon on the island who can even attempt this - we will try to contact him." Dr. Rodriguez-Diaz was one of the top surgeons in Latin America, and one of the first in Cuba to successfully perform open heart surgeries. The problem was that although he lived and worked in Havana he was from Pinar del Rio and spent every Christmas on his farm there in the mountains hunting ducks. The call was made to his home in Havana, and to everyone’s shock he picked up – it was the first Christmas in 19 years that he had not gone hunting. He immediately rushed to the hospital to begin surgery.

He assessed the situation and was very blunt with my grandfather – "This damage is very serious; he has lost a lot of blood – I can make you no guarantees." Part of the problem was the shortage of blood at the hospital. Tom Sr. immediately rolled his sleeve and volunteered his. "I’m sorry sir, but rarely do a father and son’s blood type match." Tom was insistent that they check. Sure enough, they were a match. He gave the maximum he could safely give, but it still wasn’t enough. Several from the hospital including my grandfather scoured the streets of Havana for donors. Many of the volunteers were either homeless or drunks who were out celebrating Christmas in the streets. Years later when Tommy would share his faith with the Cuban people he was quick to remind them that he too had Cuban blood in his veins.

Although the accident had happened at almost noon, it was midnight before the surgery actually started. The hospital had prepared a room for my grandparents next to Tommy’s, but they could not sleep. It was nearly dawn when the doctor was done and came to tell them what had happened in surgery. He still seemed to be in a state of disbelief.

"Without the blood we collected your son would not be alive. I estimate during the six hours we were in surgery your son completely bled out - twice. We started with the wound on the right side of his chest. After cleaning out the paint chips and repairing the damage, I closed the wound and moved onto the wound in the center, but suddenly your son began to hemorrhage. I reopened the first wound but could still not find the source of the bleeding." The doctor continued to shake his head in disbelief. "In desperation I had an idea to open a small incision in his neck – when I did the blood nearly sprayed out. I found that his jugular vein had been slit. During all those hours a muscle in your son’s neck had locked up and was holding the vein together. When we repaired the first wound, apparently the muscle finally relaxed and the vein opened up. I repaired the vein and moved on to the center wound. Upon examination I found that the puncture was within ¼ of an inch from his heart. I repaired all the damage and closed the wounds. This unlike anything I’ve ever seen."

The next morning Tom and Mabel were allowed into Tommy’s room to visit. He was under an oxygen tent, looking very pale and fragile. Still, his mind was on adventure "Hey Mom – I think that nurse was in the army- she had an army pin on her uniform." Then he turned serious "I think God must have something big for me to do, because it looks like the Devil wanted to kill me really bad…"

The hospital allowed my grandparents to stay for a week in the room at the hospital. Tommy’s recovery was remarkably fast, and he was released after only 3 weeks.

A month later Tom Sr. returned to Havana with Tommy for a checkup. The entire month he had been racking his brain, trying to figure out how he would pay the doctors. Workers at the hospital said that Dr. Rodriguez-Diaz normally charged thousands of dollars for his services. When Tommy’s check up was complete, Tom Sr. and the doctor had a one on one meeting in his office. The normally strong and dynamic man, called "El Macho" by the locals, sat humbly with his hat in hand. "There is no way that I can pay your fee all at once. But believe me when I say I will do whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, to see that you are paid what you deserve for saving my son’s life."

The doctor sat back in his chair and thought for a moment, then leaned forward and looked my grandfather in the eye. "Senor Willey, I consider the work that you are doing to help my people to be payment enough. You owe me nothing – I consider your account paid in full. Go home and enjoy your son…"

As I looked around at the group of us listening to my father’s story, there was not a dry eye in the group. Even some passersby who had stopped to listen as the story was translated into Spanish were shaking their heads and wiping tears from their eyes.

As everyone was getting on the bus I walked up to that gate and I reached out to feel the tips of the spikes – they were still sharp. As I stood there holding on to the metal I looked around at my three beautiful sisters and it hit me like a blow to the stomach just how close we had all come to not even existing.

Whether you believe in the existence of the Devil or not, if he does exist there was a reason he wanted my father dead. Tom Jr. went on years later to minister on Castro’s death row at my grandfather’s side. After being shut out of Cuba he blazed trails in the mountains of Panama. He dined with both peasants and presidents, yet treated them as equals. He would bury a stillborn son, a daughter, and eventually his wife along the way, yet he never quit helping others. In the early 80’s he helped direct relief efforts during the Mariel boatlift in Miami. Later he became the director for Disaster Relief for Central and South America. He, along with a group of delegates, would negotiate with Fidel Castro himself for the release of political prisoners from Cuban jails so they could come live in the United States. By his retirement in 2004, having served over 20 years with World Relief Corp., he had helped literally thousands of legal immigrants settle into a productive life here in America. He currently is a volunteer and consultant for CERT, which organizes and prepares communities for emergencies and disasters.

I realized as I climbed back on the bus that even at 13 yrs old my Dad was right – God did have big things for him to do…

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