Cmdr. Gail Crutcher
Navy physical therapist gets wounded walking
The physical therapist guides wounded at Landstuhl in their first steps since the battlefield, offering a physical crutch.
With his hands, he hugs.
The man with the grandfatherly nickname of “Opa” embraces hospital staff, providing an emotional crutch.
With his hands, Navy Cmdr. Gail Crutcher pens his memories.
For nearly a year, the handwritten words of the Navy reservist have flowed into a green, felt-covered diary.
On the pages, Crutcher scratches out stories so he may remember the wounded and how they found themselves under his care. The entries tell of war, of survival, of healing, of humor and of tears.
Among the pages rests the story of a 23-year-old soldier in intensive care who, with Crutcher’s help, got out of bed to take two steps. The soldier told Crutcher how a roadside bomb flipped his vehicle. How the ground shook. How the heat and flames rose. How the turret pinned his left arm. How his buddies called his name. Over and over.
As the soldier finished his story, he told Crutcher he felt like he was going to cry.
“And we did — together,” Crutcher said. “It was one of those moments.”
Crutcher was once afraid to cry, was taught not to cry. He overcame that fear.
Not all the entries ring so solemn: a note scribbled about his dog’s birthday; a tale of a wounded servicemember insisting that he would get out of his bed and low-crawl to the Burger King to get a burger if he had to instead of eating hospital food; a reminder to send his daughter German chocolate eggs.
In the early 1970s, Crutcher served a short tour as an active-duty aviation electronics technician in the Navy aboard an aircraft carrier in the Tonkin Gulf in Vietnam. His effort to write in a diary there eventually stopped. He promised himself if something similar happened again he would maintain a diary.
As an electronics technician, Crutcher enjoyed working with his hands. Back then, he dealt with planes and other machines, not people with stories and emotions to share.
Now, he uses humor and conversation to occupy patients and overcome their reluctance to get out of bed.
His desire to work with his hands in helping people led Crutcher into physical therapy about 30 years ago. That led him to heal, which led him to Landstuhl, where he hears stories of war, of survival, of healing, of humor and tears.
And of wonder.
“It’s just amazing to me — a young kid that’s been blasted heavily and has open wounds everywhere and broken limbs and whatever,” Crutcher said. “You look at him. You’ll sit there and you kind of question, ‘You really want to get out of bed?’ He says, ‘Yeah. I want to get out of bed.’ And then you’re sitting there kind of shocked, saying ‘He really wants to get out of bed. OK. That’s my job.’ ”
