There’s one scene Theatre Eclectic artistic director Richard Schultz (above) of Woodridge doesn’t want to play again. That’s the real-life drama in which he was the near-fatal victim of a drunk driver. Schultz shared his recollections of the incident in the hope that holiday revelers would be motivated not to drink and drive.
Q. What happened on Thanksgiving Eve 1979 as you were driving home with three friends from college in Quincy, Ill.?
A. Just west of Springfield, a pickup truck with a drunk driver came out from a side road and hit our car. I was driving, and my friends were sleeping. The roof of the car came off on impact, and I was pinned by the door and the steering wheel. They used a torch to cut me out.
Q. How serious were your injuries and your friends’?
A. They were okay, but I suffered a broken hip and pelvis, skull fracture, a crushed throat and temporary blindness.
Q. Was the drunk driver hurt, and what repercussions did he face?
A. He refused treatment and drove himself home. He neither received a ticket nor did he have his license revoked.
Q. Have you had health complications since that accident?
A. I have had multiple surgeries, plastic implants in my face, permanent wires in my jaw. I spent five weeks in a hospital, six months in a wheelchair, and I have no vision in my left eye.
Q. Did anything good come from this experience?
A. Yes. My case was used to help strengthen drunk driving laws enacted in the 1980s.
Naperville’s Theatre Eclectic will donate a portion of the proceeds from its alcohol-free New Year’s Eve bash to the Lisle Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Call 630-548-2912 for reservations.
