After surviving near-fatal crash, Falmouth man can’t get next care he needs in Maine
Rich Day, the Falmouth 23-year-old who was critically injured in a car crash in Gorham over the summer. He is paralyzed from the neck down and the long-term ventilator machines or rehabilitation services he need to recover long-term are not available in Maine. (Courtesy of Greg Day)
Richard Day has been on life support at Maine Medical Center in Portland for more than two months following a car crash in Gorham that left him with critical neck and spinal cord injuries. His father, Greg Day, sleeps in a cot in Richard’s hospital room most nights, talking to his paralyzed son, reading his lips for responses and changing the television channel when he asks.
The crash upended the duo’s life. They live together in Falmouth and are the sole employees of Greg’s masonry business, Greg Day Family Masonry. Richard, whose family and friends call him Rich or Richie, turns 23 on Thursday.
Though Greg said Rich feels hopeful and “lucky to be alive,” his uphill battle is getting steeper. Doctors say Rich likely will need a ventilator for the rest of his life, and his possible next treatment — at a Long-Term Acute Care Hospital (LTACH) or a specialized rehabilitation facility — are not found in Maine. Greg said the family’s ultimate goal is to bring Rich home, but he would have to go much farther away first.
Maine Health Acute Care Surgery and Trauma Medical Director Bryan Morse said his organization’s largest hospital can save the lives of patients with critical spinal cord injuries, but cannot meet their needs long-term. That reality places tremendous logistical, financial and emotional stress on families faced with moving their loved one out of state.
Morse said it is common for patients who need high levels of long-term care and physical therapy to remain in Portland’s Maine Medical Center for months without the full treatment they need. The patients can weaken, struggling with cognitive, physical and psychiatric decline without frequent stimulation. Rich should have moved on to a higher level of treatment weeks ago, Morse said.
“There’s a major gap in healthcare in Maine at the moment,” Morse said.
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Rich Day, right, and his father Greg Day. Rich was critically injured in a car crash in Gorham in August, and experts say the lack of ventilator care he will require going forward in Maine is a serious issue in the state. (Courtesy of Greg Day).
Morse said Rich should move to an LTACH, likely in Massachusetts or New Jersey, where trained professionals could gradually reduce the settings on his ventilator to help him breathe more independently. Greg said he and Rich would rather he qualify to settle in a specialized rehabilitation care for spinal cord injuries — Shepherd Center in Atlanta, for example — where he would be surrounded by people with similar injuries and receive rigorous physical therapy to move him toward recovery.
“He doesn’t want to sit here and get flipped back and forth in a bed for the rest of his life. We’d both just rather die right now than have that be the final sentence,” Greg said. “He wants to sit up in a wheelchair, he wants to be able to go outside, he wants to be able to be mobile, he wants to go to the ocean.”
Greg and Rich are lifelong Mainers. If Rich moves to an LTACH in another state, Greg said he would go with him, but the medical bills are already mounting while Greg is out of work to care for his son. If Rich went to a rehabilitation center, temporary housing for patients’ family would be provided, Greg said.
Maine Medical Center sees about 12 patients with spinal cord injuries like Rich’s a year, Morse said. The hospital sent about 107 patients with various critical injures to out-of-state facilities in 2025 and 2026 due to a lack of in-state recourses, according to Richard Marino, senior medical director of post-acute care at MaineHealth.
Marino said the problem comes down to a lack of funding in Maine for LTACHs and long-term care facilities. Ventilator units require staff that know how to operate them, units designed to accommodate them, and consistent power and oxygen to keep them running. Springbrook Center in Westbrook had a ventilator unit about 10 years ago, Marino said, but closed it because it wasn’t profitable.
In a rural state like Maine, the number of people in need of ventilators at a given time is inconsistent, Marino said. That doesn’t make the consequences for those who do less dire, and he said the situation for people who need long-term care for conditions beyond spinal cord injures has worsened since more facilities closed following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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“People have to leave their homes, they have to leave their families, they have to potentially go to places where they actually have no social support,” Marino said.
Marino is on a committee with the Maine Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, a nonprofit that advocates for for long-term care consumers. It is lobbying the Maine Legislature for funding that would bring more long-term care infrastructure to Maine.
Greg said he has now heard repeatedly how challenging injuries like Rich’s become when they happen in Maine. He said he saw Rich laughing and smiling for the first time in a while this week after a physical therapy session, something he needs much more of.
“He just needs a different atmosphere — mentally, psychosocially, spiritually, holistically… That’s the urgency I feel every day,” Greg said. “We’re just stuck here.”
Greg’s childhood friend has raised more than $16,505 through an online fund for him and Rich to help their family while they are unable to work.
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Tagged: healthcare, long-term care, maine medical center
Madeleine is a community reporter for Gorham, Buxton and Standish. She started her journalism career in Vermont, where she reported for Seven Days and served as the editor-in-chief of Middlebury College's. More by Madeleine Kaptein
