Photo by Courtesy

Tim Smith, a Barnstead firefighter, suffered an aneurysm while plowing Dec. 26.

article tools

• Email
• Comments (4)
• Share
• Print

It's been 13 days since Tim Smith lost consciousness while plowing roads in Barnstead, when an aneurysm burst in the brain of the 50-year-old firefighter, a longtime town resident. He managed to stop the plow at the side of Providence Road, where he sat slumped at the wheel for some minutes.

A police patrol drove by, his brother said later, but the officers knew of the gregarious driver's tendency to stop along his route to help residents with an icy pipe or loose board, so they kept driving. Ten minutes later, a fellow plow driver looked further inside the cab and called for help.

Smith's life partner, Amy Hall, arrived moments after the ambulance. Her partner had uncharacteristically left his radio scanner home that day and had called Hall, she said, to suggest she listen to calls from the Barnstead road crew, where he had worked for a couple of months.

"I was just listening to it and heard someone say there was a driver down," she said. "I got a really weird feeling. I turned to (a friend) and said, 'I think it's Tim.' "

That call wasn't him. But a moment later, another broadcast told of his accident. When Hall got to the scene, emergency responders told her of the aneurysm as they prepared Smith for the trip to Concord Hospital.

From there, he was taken by his fellow Barnstead firefighters to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, where he underwent a 4½-hour surgery to repair the aneurysm.

Smith has been in a coma ever since. Doctors have told the family they don't know what the future will bring, said his brother, Bill Smith, also a longtime Barnstead resident.

"Until he wakes up, we don't know anything," he said. "The stem of his brain is operational. The rest is a mystery and will remain a mystery until he wakes up."

Hall and Bill Smith have rarely left the hospital since the accident, splurging for motel rooms only on New Year's Eve. Often present have also been his daughters, Mariya, 13, and Kayley, a 20-year-old Marine scheduled to deploy to Iraq later this month.

Hall, Mariya's mother, has been with Tim Smith for 15 years and said the pair are married in every sense but the court papers. She has made sure to be by her partner's side every morning when the nurses change shifts, so she can hear feedback from two sets of staff.

"I don't care how I get him back," Hall said. "I just need him back. Whatever way I get him is fine."

Dozens of people have visited Smith most days since he arrived, his friends said. A website where Hall posts updates about his status, caringbridge.org/visit/timsmith, had been visited more than 3,700 times as of last night.

"He's touched so many lives through his generosity and kindness and humor," Bill Smith said. "Tim's that guy. I don't know if there's a definition of that guy somewhere, but Tim's it."

His brother's sense of energy is well-known, he said, as well as his love of the outdoors. The pair once followed a set of moose tracks 6 miles through the woods from one of their homes to Gilmanton, Bill Smith said. They never saw the moose, but his brother thought they could catch it.

At the fire department where Smith has served on-call since 1992, he is a lieutenant responsible for his station's gear and, his colleagues said, much of its good cheer.

"He doesn't so much give orders as make you want to help him out," said firefighter Nick Stabile.

During Tim Smith's many years delivering fuel and doing repairs for Eastern Propane, he befriended many of the clients along his route. Hall said she often receives calls at home from elderly women asking for "Timmy" to help them with repairs or strange noises.

He rarely accepted money for his work, Bill Smith said, though his brother often interrupted his own day to give a hand. When Tim Smith built a garage for his brother, Bill had to give the money to Hall. (next page »)