After breaking neck in bicycle crash, former Helena College Dean Daniel Bingham is on the road to recovery
Daniel Bingham and his wife, Donna Bingham, pose for a photo in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia. In February, the former Helena College dean crashed his bike, resulting in a broken neck and 101-day hospitalization.
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Jordan Erb, The Independent Record
Early in the morning of Feb. 14, with the rising sun casting gray light into the streets, Daniel Bingham was riding his bicycle down a path in Sydney, Australia. It was a route the former dean of Helena College had taken many times before, but a split-second overcorrection drove him into a chain-link fence. In an instant, the routine bike ride turned into a broken neck, a 101-day hospitalization and a long road to recovery.
Daniel was seven months into his three-year stint in Sydney as a mission president for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He spent 19 days in a Sydney hospital before being flown to a hospital in Salt Lake City. Now discharged and settled into an apartment in Orem, Utah, Daniel looks forward to one day returning to a career in higher education. But for now, his focus is on recovery.
The accident left him with a bruised spinal cord and fractured vertebrae, which has affected the mobility in his arms and legs. Daniel goes to physical therapy five days a week, and can now move with the aide of a walker and helpers to spot him. His arms aren’t quite “waking up” yet, as he put it, but he is regaining strength in his shoulders, biceps and fingers.
Though a nurse helps Daniel around the house, his wife Donna helps with much of his recovery as well. Donna doesn’t work, and Daniel jokingly referred to himself as his wife’s full-time job.
“The accident didn’t happen just to Daniel; it happened to us as a couple and as a family,” Donna said. “I’ve been with him every day in the hospital, and part of my journey right now is to learn how to help him. I’m working with him in rehab so we can do as much as we can at home.”
According to Donna, the couple is highly independent. Donna has learned how to move her husband from his wheelchair to the car, help him move around with a walker and do at-home stretches that help with his recovery.
The couple has four kids, Aaron, Emily Baum, Amber and Dustin, who help out when they can. Baum lives the closest to them now. She has three kids of her own, who enjoy visiting their grandfather. Her 7-year-old son, in particular, likes to visit.
“It’s been really amazing for him, because he would go to the hospital with me and do physical therapy with my dad. It was really sweet,” Baum said. “He’s been really great helping him learn to walk.”
Former Helena College dean Daniel Bingham meets with physical therapists after a bike crash in Australia resulted in a broken neck.
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When Baum, a nurse, got the call about her father’s accident, the news carried a different meaning for her. Being trained in medicine, her knowledge informed Baum’s understanding of the accident differently than the rest of her family. She knew the gravity of a spinal cord injury. But she’s watched her father grow despite the circumstances.
According to Baum, her father has displayed the emotional resilience needed to push not only himself through hard times, but the rest of the family as well. When she feels angry or sad, she turns to him for encouragement, rather than the other way around.
“One thing that I think has been remarkable throughout this whole thing is that he’s been so emotionally determined,” Baum said. “I’ve asked him before, ‘are you angry?’ and he said, ‘no, I haven’t been angry at all. I have experienced so much in my life so far; this is just a new chapter.’”
Daniel maintains this front, and uses it to push back against mentally and emotionally trying circumstances. An avid outdoorsman, Daniel is well aware of the distance that lies between his present and the future of returning to backpacking, climbing and fly fishing. Luckily, he’s up for the challenge.
“There are lots of things I probably will never be able to do,” Daniel said. “But there are lots of things I can still do, so I choose to concentrate on learning how to do all the things I enjoy, but in a different way. I could choose to be upset and disgruntled at life, or I could choose to do everything I possibly can and enjoy all the things that life has to offer.”
Throughout his four-month recovery period, Daniel and his family have been supported largely by the LDS Church and the Helena community. According to Daniel, the church helped with the health insurance and transportation back to Salt Lake City. A GoFundMe page (www.gofundme.com/DanielBingham) was also started for the family and has raised over $7,000 so far.
Financially speaking, the family is well covered. In terms of support, the same is true.
“There’s not a day that goes by that we’re not thinking about our great friends and community in Montana,” Daniel said. “When you fall upon a tough time, life is not over. There’s a lot of good out there and it’s time to reinvent ourselves — my wife and I — to a certain extent and do all we can to give back to the communities in which we live.”