MCCLURE -- Bannerville Volunteer Fire Company Assistant Fire Chief Richard "Rick" Keiser, 46, was still listed in serious condition Friday evening at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, after suffering injuries in an accident that occurred while he was responding to a fire call early Sunday morning.
According to his wife, Anna, as Keiser was rushing to the Bannerville fire station to respond to a fire call around 2:20 a.m., he hit a patch of black ice, and hit and killed a deer with his 2004 Ford Exhibition, forcing the vehicle to the right, through an electric fence, and into a cement block springhouse before coming to rest.
"He doesn't remember most of the accident," Anna said. "He remembers a deer running out in front of him, but that's it."
During the accident, he hit his head, causing a laceration and subsequent short-term memory loss.
He also suffered a broken leg, cracked left kneecap and a fractured vertebrae.
Two hours after the accident, Keiser was found by a truck driver for the state Department of Transportation, who was cindering the roads. He was then taken by ambulance to Geisinger Medical Center, where he was initially listed in critical condition. LifeFlight was not available to transport him because it was snowing in Danville, Anna said.
"They're (the hospital) not saying when he'll be able to come home," she added.
The couple, of McClure, have a 17-month-old girl. "It's been kind of tough, running down to see him (at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville), taking care of the baby and working," Anna said. "We still have bills to pay."
Anna has a job providing private nursing care.
She said the trip to the hospital takes one and a half hours one way. She has been at the hospital every day to see her husband. "Today's the first day I haven't gone down," she said Friday.
Keiser's brother, Ken, believes the doctors at the hospital will soon remove him from the serious condition status.
He said the family is managing as they wait to hear the news of Keiser's condition day-by-day. "At least one of us makes it down (to the hospital) once a day," he said.
Ken, a volunteer firefighter with the McClure Fire Company, said he was responding to the same fire call early Sunday morning, but was coming from the opposite direction in which his brother was driving, so would never have seen his truck along the road. "I just happened to be going the wrong way," he lamented.
Bannerville Fire Chief Charles McKnight said the fire company had not received a response call from Richard Keiser, so no one knew he was on his way to the station for the early morning fire at 19 N. Stuck St. in McClure.
The fire destroyed the home of Harold "Red" Reitz, who was taken to Lewistown Hospital with smoke inhalation.
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Family watching over injured firefighter
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