Horace
Roman Philosopher


Mark Harter remembers nothing about the accident, nothing but fragments of place and sound and color. Kissing his fiancée good-bye, he remembers. Revving his motorcycle, a classic Suzuki GSX-R-he remembers. The mid-August humidity, he remembers, but little else - nature's admission, I suppose, that some things are best left forgotten.

Maybe, the false peace of the open road caused him to leave his helmet behind, an unfortunate first for the thirty-year-old Indianapolis trucker. Sadly, he is neither the first nor the last in that regard.

Now, you ask --nearly everyone does-- how fast was the young man going, when he lost control, the blacktop refused to give, and he launched himself into a three-and-a-half week coma? No one really knows for sure. A few blanks have been filled in by the police report based on eyewitness accounts, skid marks, mathematics and conjecture. At this point, however, none of that really matters.

Wishard Hospital, where he was taken, had seen worse. It is, after all, a place where Indy 500 drivers often wind up after wrecking at 220 mph. and it takes more than a few Mario Andrettis of Medicine to patch them up and send them home.

To look at the 30-year-old, you'd be hard-pressed to find scars anywhere--physical ones-unless he's wearing his Dockers shorts and his left leg is exposed, which still looks raw a year later, and you wonder why the surgeons just didn't pitch it along with what remained of his clothes.

Then again, this is Wishard, where vertebrae are fused, stopped hearts jumpstarted and nearly anything can be returned to working order with the single exception of a damaged optic nerve, which is precisely the young man's problem.

Although he can still see some movement, some shadows, some light out of the corner of one eye, Harter is legally blind. Barring any immediate medical breakthroughs, he will remain so for the indeterminate future. But here is where tragedy and renewal merge. 

Upon his release from Wishard, he returned home to a life of adjustments. Almost immediately, he and his fiancée Laura put themselves at the mercy of the Internet searching websites, links and portals for anything related to optic nerves. After a time, they came across The Schepens, the largest eye and vision research institute in America - an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. 

"One name that came up," Laura said, "was Dr. Dong Feng Chen." Chen is a research scientist at the Institute and a pioneer in optic nerve regeneration. "That was the beginning. We e-mailed the Institute, left town for a few days and came home to a reply from Rich Godfrey." A volunteer patient liaison at The Schepens, Godfrey is also sightless, a victim of Macular Degeneration. A cure, he believes, is not far off given the research and technology available, if funding can somehow be increased.

"There's no telling what we could do if we had more (money) for research, new programs and staff," said Godfrey, during one of his earliest conversations with Harter. The trucker pledged to give what he could, but he is no Bill Gates.

Days later, needing to talk, needing to vent, Harter called ad man, Pat Fagan, a family friend for over twenty years.

Then, it happened.

"I was joking around," Harter said, "trying to be funny, when I suggested setting up a fund of my own to bankroll The Schepens." Within moments, Eyes on the Road was born.

Looking back, Fagan explains. "If I knew he was trying to be funny, I might have dismissed it outright, but he was depressed - I've been there, I know - making fun would have been the last thing on my mind. Mark's too, I assumed, I took him seriously and we went from there." 

Then, as now, Harter worked with Craig Zwiener, owner/operator of truck.net, the transportation industry's leading website. Coincidence or not, Zwiener's teenage son Dylan suffers from Cone-Rod Dystrophy, a juvenile form of Macular Degeneration. So, when the idea for Eyes on the Road was first mentioned, it hit home.

"I agreed to let Mark use the site for fund-raising, if the people at Schepens approved, their tax-exempt status was in order, and donations went directly to the Institute. It's important that everyone knows this is legit."

Godfrey put Harter and Zwiener in touch with Melanie Saunders, the Institute's Director of Annual Giving. Saunders brought in Elizabeth Erickson, Director of Development and Public Relations. BeeMac Trucking's Dave Dudo came on board-Dudo is their Director of Operations.

Within days, if not hours, aftermarket suppliers pledged cash and parts and visibility. Midnight Trucking Radio Network Host Eric Harley agreed to provide airtime. The names and pledges began to blur at that point. Conference calls were held, updates delivered, questions raised and answered. Harter's brother, Nick, a San Francisco artist with a major entertainment company created the Eyes on the Road logo. What began as a joke took on serious dimensions.

September 2006 

"Mark, we'd like to have you attend our Gala." Saunders extended the invitation. The Institute's Seventh Annual EyeBall -a yearly fundraiser-- was scheduled for October 20th. She, Godfrey and Erickson wanted Harter to attend as an honored guest.

"I told them I'd be there, even if I have to drive myself." A plane ticket was arranged. Another good idea considering the circumstances.

"What a night," he said later, when talking to Fagan. More than 250 friends of the Institute gathered raising over $120,000 for research. Our hero refused to dance citing an irreversible condition called "Two Left Feet." Poor excuse, but given his contribution to Eyes on the Road, no one held it against him.

December 5, 2006 - 12:06 a.m.Eyes on the Road is officially launched on the Midnight Trucking Radio Network with hosts Eric Harley and Gary McNamara. Saunders, Harter and Zwiener walked listeners through the story weaving together all the pieces and parts, sharing personal experiences and answering questions.

Both Harley and McNamara spoke of family members with vision problems. McNamara's father-in-law had used the Institute as a resource years prior, when his eyesight began to deteriorate. "When I started listening to Mark," McNamara said, "I realized … hey, this was the same place." Time to repay the favor.
 
Listeners were invited to make donations online. Contributions poured in. Harley and truck.net ombudsman Monty Rhoades were the first to feed the till. By the following afternoon, media coverage stretched as far as Europe and Asia. Dateline Japan: Truckers Join Forces with Schepens Eye Research Institute to Help Prevent and Cure Blindness. An article followed.

Harter is convinced he will get his sight back eventually. For the time being, however, he is content to know that his experience has a silver lining. "It's not about me, anymore. Everybody needs to know that." In the beginning, sure, getting his eyesight back meant everything. But not now. All he has gone through has given him a sense of purpose, a chance to help the industry he loves by raising awareness of career-threatening eye diseases and injuries that can affect truckers and families alike. He feels good, too, knowing that with his help, The Schepens can continue to find cures for retinal disorders and debilitating diseases like macular degeneration, glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa and diabetic retinopathy--not to mention being able to regenerate optic nerves which, until recently, has been beyond the scope of modern medicine.
 
"I'm happier now than I have been in years," he says. Considering the millions that this brainchild of his will help, he has good reason to be. For more on Eyes on the Road or to make a donation, log onto eyesontheroad.org, or schepens.harvard.edu


THE END