Jim Nolan

AGE: 68
FAMILY: Wife, Mary MacKrell; four adult children
RESIDENCE: Greenwich
PROFESSION: Professor of Business Analytics and Computer Science, Siena College; and Town Supervisor, Greenwich
SPORTS: Golf, Yoga, Swimming, Rowing, Rock Climbing

By Jack Rightmyer

It was Labor Day 2010, and Jim Nolan, a professor at Siena College, was enjoying a bike ride on the Warren County Bike Trail with his wife Mary and three of their friends. “I was near the Glen Lake area and coming down a steep decline that has an S turn at the end,” Jim said. “I made the right turn and was getting ready to make the left turn when all of a sudden coming up the hill was a family of three riding side-by-side.”

Jim was going at a pretty good speed and attempted to slow down when he realized he was going off the path. “I tried to do it in a controlled way, but it was wet from rain the night before and somehow the bike just stopped dead and I flew over the handlebars and down a 16-foot embankment. I landed on my head and broke my C6 and C7 vertebrae.”

He never lost consciousness, but he could not move anything. He could talk and breathe and ended up spending nine days in the Albany Medical Center where he had surgery. He spent four months as an inpatient at Sunnyview Rehabilitation Hospital.

“I’m a pretty optimistic person and as I was lying there after coming out of surgery, I began to reflect on what was going to happen to me. I could only move my arms a little bit. I figured I’d end up living in a nursing home, but I still had my mind, and I could still read. The day I entered Sunnyview I was greeted by the wife of a Siena colleague who said she was going to take good care of me. That was so comforting to hear.”

At the time of the accident Jim was in good shape. In January of 2010 he had made a resolution to eat better and workout every day. By June he had lost 40 pounds and was working out at least an hour every morning. He attacked his rehabilitation like he was training for a triathlon. Initially he couldn’t open his hands and needed to be fed, but by working over and over with an occupational therapist he learned how to get food off his plate with a bent fork and get most of it in his mouth. “That took two months. It was slow going. I spent four hours a day, six days a week doing my physical therapy. It was grueling. I even had to learn how to regulate my own blood pressure.”

The impact upon his family was devastating. “My wife is an accountant, and she basically stopped working to be there with me. I used to think, if I go home, I’m going to be such a burden but my family and her family rallied around me as did the Siena family. There was a fundraiser that raised over $85,000 dollars for significant renovations to our house.”

His doctors and therapists were impressed with all the hard work he was putting in at Sunnyview. “My insurance covered 44 days of in-patient care, and with a week left I was informed I had only seven more days, and that I’d have to go to a nursing home. I had been making great progress, but I knew most nursing homes weren’t equipped for the care I needed.”

His doctor got his entire medical team together including all the therapists and social workers and made a compelling argument to the insurance company that he was progressing, and that he needed to continue working with Sunnyview. That argument enabled Jim to get an additional 45 days. “Sunnyview agreed to accept a lower rate to keep me there. That extra time kept me out of the nursing home. On the day I left Sunnyview, I walked out on a walker. If I had gone to a nursing home I probably never would have left.”

He’s not the type of person who has a Why Me? attitude. “It’s not helpful to think like that. It occurred to me that I have a new body now, but I still have the same brain. This new body has a lot of challenges, and through the years I’ve tried to correct some of those challenges, work around them and accept them.”

Because of all his hard work, and the good therapists he has worked with, he is able today to play golf, do yoga, swim with a flotation device on his lower back, and even climb on an indoor rock wall. “I thank God I was in good shape when the accident occurred because I still had muscle in my legs. That was a big help in my early recovery. Also, a week before the accident my wife bought me a new bike helmet, and that saved my brain.”

Jim, who graduated from Siena College in 1975 and has been teaching there since 1982, gives a lot of the credit with his recovery to the Siena community. “Siena has allowed me to use the pool to swim, and the women’s swim team has been very supportive of me. The college brought in an occupational therapist who helped redesign my office to make it more accessible. The therapist went all around the campus to suggest changes for me in the cafeteria and the classroom where I would be teaching. It was very emotional the day I returned to the classroom, and the day I saw my colleagues once again.”

He believes there is something very special about Siena. “There’s a Franciscan attribute about giving back and helping the less fortunate that is palpable here. Students can feel it when they visit, and we tend to attract students who are caregivers.”

The accident changed him as a person. Today he appreciates so much what other people have done for him. He takes nothing for granted. “It’s also helped me realize better the struggles other people are going through, and I want to help them out in any possible way. I mentor new spinal cord patients and try to provide any care I can for them.”

In recent years he has also gotten involved in the town politics of Greenwich. “My wife and I moved here 17 years ago to this beautiful village in Washington County. I became friends with some people involved with the Democratic Party, and we wondered how we could make things better for the citizens who needed help.”

According to Jim, the Republican Town Supervisor only cared about keeping taxes low. “He wasn’t very popular, and I saw an opportunity so I ran for the office last fall and won by 14 votes in a very Republican town.”

He will continue this fall to teach at Siena and be the Town Supervisor in Greenwich. “I look at my political job as providing services for my constituents and to do it in a fiscally responsible way. In town politics there’s no place for partisanship. Once you’re elected, you’re there to help the people, and the parties need to work together.”

Jack Rightmyer (jackxc@nycap.rr.com) of Burnt Hills was a longtime cross-country coach at Bethlehem High School and today is an Adjunct English Professor at Siena College. He has written two books “A Funny Thing About Teaching” and “It’s Not About Winning.”