The waits — all of them — were agonizing. That fateful late Saturday afternoon, Samantha Busch had to endure several.
The first was a long pause after the impact, waiting to hear her husband’s response to spotter Tony Hirschman’s question over the team radio: "Kyle, are you OK?" The last time he failed to respond after a crash, it was because he’d yanked out his radio communications cord in a fit of anger as he dismounted. That earned him a stern talking-to from his concerned spouse, leading to a verbal agreement that he would always answer from that point forward.
After watching the multicar crash unfold, Samantha soon sprang from her usual seat atop the Joe Gibbs Racing pit box, pulling her own earplugs in the process and moving as fast as she could, considering she’d just completed her second trimester of pregnancy with the couple’s first child. Then the next series of waits began, first at the track’s infield care center, then at nearby Halifax Health Medical Center. She was told not to watch replays of the wreck, and that she couldn’t see her husband because of the gruesome injuries. After a nearly 45-minute interval apart at the hospital, Samantha Busch had had enough.
"Finally the crazy pregnant lady came out and I was like, ‘Look … I will beat down that door. I need to see him.’ "
Kyle Busch‘s first question upon being reunited with his wife, even while bone protruded from the skin of his mangled right leg: "Is the baby OK?"
Her first thought was, "Thank God he’s alive."
"Yes, his feet and legs were messed up," she said, "but there was no neck injury, no head injury, he didn’t black out, so it was just that blessing that not everything was OK, but he was alive, he was with us and we were going to move through it."
The uphill weeks that have followed for Kyle and Samantha Busch since that frantic Feb. 21 have been filled with intense rehabilitation and a fair share of tears, but all overarched by a comforting sense of gratitude as the couple awaits the arrival of their first child in mid-May. It’s why when the 29-year-old driver appeared Wednesday for his first interview session since the crash, his wife was the first person he singled out to thank.
"We are very fortunate. We’re blessed," Kyle Busch said. "We know that with our lives that we have being in the Sprint Cup Series, me being a driver here, us being married, us being blessed now with the opportunity to go through (in vitro fertilization) as she’s mentioned in her blogs and whatnot that we’re going to have our first son here in a little bit, everything seems to be a challenge. It doesn’t seem like anything ever comes easy, yet we power through it. We strive as hard as we can. We dig deep and we make it all happen.
"It might not seem 70 and sunny and peaches and roses on the outside, or it does seem that way I should say, but maybe sometimes it’s not all that way on the inside of things. In retrospect, we’re very blessed."
Pleasant weather, fresh fruit and flowers aside, the continuing road back to being race-ready hasn’t been glass-smooth. Things were especially difficult early on. The couple was so overwrought in the hours after the crash that doctors at the Florida hospital lovingly checked the baby’s heartbeat to assure them. The first week since the crash brought two surgeries in two different states, with rods, screws and plates to hold everything together.
The family held together, too. Kyle Busch credited Samantha for being an unofficial alternate physical therapist, encouraging him to push his limits in his workouts. She was also there for the biggest moments of his recovery — beside him when he first stood, holding his hand during his first steps since mid-February.
"It was a challenge because I’m not as agile as I was either," Samantha Busch said, motioning toward her stomach, now at approximately the eight-month mark of pregnancy. "I’ve got this big beach ball with me now, so helping him to get stuff or if I was tired, I just put it to the side and both of us just do what you’ve got to do to get ready for the baby, to prepare for him going back. We’re a team. We’re fighters."
Kyle Busch‘s newfound mobility has eased the process of late. Having him home has, too, Samantha said, even though she light-heartedly groused about him voicing contrary opinions regarding pressing domestic matters such as decorating the nursery.
It might be tough to tell what the "new normal" will be for the Busches, even when Kyle resumes his full-time job crisscrossing the nation’s speedways to drive the No. 18 Toyota. In a few weeks, their family dynamic will become a party of three — a life-altering change sure to bring more excitement (and likely sleepless nights) to their household.
Amid all the bustle — past, present and commotion-to-be — the two have thrived by simply staying positive.
"We’ve definitely made the best out of it," she said. "That’s what you have to do in a situation like this. There’s no point in being upset or moping — it’s not going to change it. He’s just been great at working hard and getting back and I’m so proud of him."
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