Father’s undying love keeps an impaired son’s dream alive

Some relatives visit Patrick (in wheelchair)   [PHOTO: STANDARD]

By DANN OKOTH

He had always wanted to be a pilot, after accompanying his mother who was an air hostess on several flights around the globe.

He straddled two continents to pursue his dream —even a debilitating motor accident that left him in a vegetative state seen not to dim his resolve.

Yet this hardly begins to tell the story of 23-year-old Patrick Cheptiony, and that of his beleaguered family.

Theirs is a tale of a tragic event, miraculous redemptions and unfaltering faith, all intertwined.

After several unsuccessful attempts to get admission into an aviation school in Kenya, Patrick from Kericho County took off to the United States to pursue his dream.

Record time

He enrolled at Riverside Flight Centre in Tulsa City in Oklahoma in 2010. He breezed through the college like a wizard, completing his Private Pilot Licence course in record time.

But as fate would have it, Patrick was involved in a grisly road accident in 2011 in the US just four days before sitting his Commercial Pilot Licence exams — one that would have qualified him to be employed by any airline in the world.

A woman driving at high speed while talking on her cellphone on Tulsa City motorway rammed Patrick’s vehicle from behind, flinging it several feet in the air.

When the vehicle hit the ground, Patrick had a broken spine and a punctured kidney. Incredibly, a friend who was travelling with him was unhurt.

But in those 45 horrendous seconds, a childhood dream had been trashed, a fortune wiped out and a family left in tatters.

Now unable to walk, work or fend for himself, Patrick is helpless — yet he refuses to give up.

His parents must now fork out $30,000 (Sh2.5 million) every year to keep him in the US and on treatment.

Yet it is not Patrick’s current state or the family’s dire circumstance that confounds — rather it is the tale of a father’s undying love, a son’s determination and a faith that could move a mountain that inspires.

One afternoon, we make our way to a semi-detached house in Nairobi’s South-C area off Ole Sapara Street. John Cheptiony and his family have occupied this house for nearly three decades.

Photographs and paintings on the wall — and all manner of memorabilia which occupy every single available space in the small living room, portray a happier and prosperous past.

The 58-year-old father of three savours the pictures on the wall, his eyes roving from one picture to another almost in a nostalgic trance.

“That was Patrick when he had just graduated from Sunshine School,” he points out. “He scored an ‘A’ in every subject. He was a straight ‘A’ boy,” he continues.

For Cheptiony, a retired civil servant, those events could easily have happened yesterday.

But on this day an air of uncertainty, even trepidation, engulfs the room as Cheptiony recounts events and experiences of the past few years.

“It was so near yet so far,” he says referring to how close Patrick came to graduating from flight school and the incident that now makes that appear like a distant mirage.

The events following the accident are as clear in his mind as if they occurred yesterday, although it’s almost three years ago. “I was upstairs in my bedroom studying for my theology exams when I heard my wife Lillian call from the sitting room.

“I wondered what the matter was because she sounded quite urgent and panicky.

Pale with fear

“I rushed downstairs but met my wife at the bottom of the stairs making her way up, her face pale with fear,” recalls Cheptiony.

He also says that amid the drama and confusion following news that Patrick had been involved in an accident, he managed to call the family to prayer before saying or doing anything.

“The news was so shocking I could not think of anything other than prayer. 

“Patrick would later that night, after coming out of his coma, contact us via Skype. He would assure us that everything would be alright, but I could tell from the way he looked and spoke that things were not okay. I told him to pray hard and trust in God.”

As it were, Cheptiony would need a lot of prayer himself and a few miracles here and there in the days to come.

Cheptiony had just undergone an operation to remove a hernia in his groin and had spent the last cent he had on the medical procedure.

Earlier, the family had spent their entire savings to send Patrick to the US and pay school fees for his two siblings.

“Even securing the air ticket to the US was difficult. I had to rely on the goodwill of my church and friends to afford a ticket,” he tells The Standard.

Difficult challenges

But as he set out for the US on August 19, 2011, Cheptiony had no idea he would spend nearly three years in a distant land wrestling with difficult challenges.

“I had only 13 dollars left in my pocket when I arrived at Tulsa City,” he recalls.

“I did not know how to move around in the city, let alone where I would sleep.”

Luckily, a cousin to his wife who lives in New York had already flown to Tulsa to be with Patrick at St John’s Medical Centre in the city.

“He was by his bedside when he underwent the operation,” he says. “Besides that, he had already booked me a room and prepared everything, including an equivalent of a local sponge to scrub my body with in the bath,” he details.

But much as this was the first in a series of miracles, reality would soon dawn on the elder Cheptiony when he first visited Patrick in hospital. “He was in such bad shape he had to be lifted out of bed and helped in again. I had to help him with everything, including his answering a call of nature,” he says.

Then came the million-dollar question — how long would Patrick be in hospital, how much would it cost and where would he put up if he was forced to stay in US for longer?

The fact that he needed to be with Patrick first thing in the morning to wash and change and stay until late in the night to help with feeding and massaging him meant he needed to stay within the vicinity of the hospital.

The nearest and cheapest hotel apartment went for $1,800 a month yet he had barely 10 dollars left in his pocket.

Then a pastor named Gachungi Wambugu of The First Presbyterian Church in Tulsa City introduced him to the nuns at St John’s Hospital.

“I first stayed at Hospitality House of Tulsa City, where I was only required to contribute one dollar every week,” he says.

In this facility one was only allowed to stay for two weeks while looking after their loved ones who were admitted to the hospital, but Cheptiony was allowed another two weeks as Patrick was too sick to be discharged — another miracle.

With little or no money, he would walk to and from this facility to the hospital every day.

“I remember one day when I had to be with Patrick until well past midnight, then I attempted to walk to my room at the hospitality facility past a notoriously dangerous flyover because I did not have three dollars for a taxi. The nuns warned me that I could be mugged or even killed and took me in their van,” he says.

He would regularly rely on such free rides to make it to his room late at night.

“The rigorous routine was taking its toll on me. There was no single night that I slept before midnight. Most of the time I slept well past two or three in the morning.

Heavy burden

“I also needed to study and the physical strain on me was evident. I had to help Patrick with his physiotherapy everyday, which meant literally carrying him on my shoulders. He is a big man and the burden was just too much.”

The extra two weeks granted Cheptiony at the facility were coming to an end and the frigid winter season was fast approaching — they needed to find accommodation, quick.

Just then a group of nuns at the hospital came up with a plan. The Cheptionys would sign a prayer wish card everyday and ask anything of God.

In the list was a wish for Patrick to get well soon, a wheelchair for him and somewhere to sleep.

Within just a week, the congregation had collected $2,800 and another faithful donated a wheelchair — a second miracle.

In the meantime Patrick had been discharged from the hospital, not because he was well but the facility could not keep him any longer.

Surprisingly, though the hospital agreed to write off Patrick’s hospital bill amounting to over $200,000 after the intervention of a lawyer. And they also secured an apartment where they paid just 60 dollars per week — a third miracle.

But things would not be easy for Cheptiony and his son in their new apartment.

They had to improvise a gymnasium in Patrick’s bedroom where they erected a metal bar across his bed to help him exercise. The running costs were just too high and they had no income.

“Incredibly, in countless times when we had come to the last bit of our food stock, someone would come from nowhere and buy us a month’s supply. At one point, we had too much food we kept some of it on top of the fridge,” he says.

In the meantime, Patrick had already renewed his visa twice and the lawyers helping him were finding it difficult to renew it a third time.

A lawyer hatched a plan to smuggle him across the border to Mexico where renewing the visa would not be difficult.

But while he was working on it, another lawyer bulldozed the authorities to renew the visa a third time citing Patrick’s dire condition — a fourth miracle — perhaps?

However, time was running out. Cheptiony had spent two and-a-half years in the US and he was running the risk of being kicked out of the country.

“We came to a decision that we should return to Kenya. However, Patrick was adamant he would stay. He is convinced he would recover and complete his course.”

But when Cheptiony boarded a Nairobi-bound plane on February 5, 2014, he left behind half of his soul in Tulsa — literally.
Currently, Patrick is enrolled at The Centre for Individuals with Physical Challenges in Tulsa City, which provides a broad range of rehabilitative, recreational and social activities for persons with disabilities. But the bills have been mounting.
Patrick needs at least Sh2.5 million each year to survive.

The vehicle that hit Patrick had only $30,000 insurance premium — but the law firm that represented Patrick took half of the money in professional fees, leaving him with just $15,000.

The flight says it can only insure Patrick in the air and cannot foot his road insurance liabilities.

The family which now ekes out a living from odd jobs and a small business appeals to well-wishers to help them raise the required amount to keep Patrick in treatment and in school. “Patrick has an unexceptional spirit.

He never gives up, and when he says he will recover and finish his course I can believe him. I have learnt he has started playing wheelchair basketball.

For someone like me who was with him a few days after the accident, this would seem impossible,” Cheptiony says.

But then, what are miracles if you can explain them? The family can be reached on 0722-291-170 or 0774-917-881.