Father-son masonry team shaken after son is critically injured in Gorham car crash
Richard Day, 22, and his father Greg Day. The pair work in masonry together in southern Maine and New Hampshire. Richard is fighting critical injuries at Maine Medical Center after a car crash in Gorham. (Courtesy of Greg Day)
Greg Day is inseparable from his 22-year-old son, Richard. The pair live together in Falmouth and travel around southern Maine and New Hampshire as the sole employees of Greg’s masonry business, Greg Day Family Masonry.
Now, Greg is by Richard’s side at Maine Medical Center every possible second after his son suffered critical neck and spinal chord injuries last Sunday in a car crash in Gorham. His green Jeep struck a utility pole on County Road on his way to meet a friend to swim.
Hospital staff are working to stabilize Richard. It is possible he will require 24/7 ventilator care for the rest of his life.
Richard, whose family and friends call him Rich or Richie, first told his father he wanted to work with him in his early teenage years. Greg said his son didn’t always fit in well at school. Rich bought his own work boots and never looked back.
“He and I are just these two guys in a crappy old pickup truck, going around the state and knowing that we can do anything just as good as any other company, just as beautiful,” Greg said. “He and I are our own institution, even though we’ve probably felt at times that other institutions let us down.”
Rich’s family and friends describe him as hard-working, funny, profoundly in touch with his surroundings and strong-willed when it comes to helping vulnerable people. His uncle, Jeff Day, affectionally noted Rich’s “wild, crazy hair” and said he is a “fighter.”
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“That’s probably what saved him,” Jeff said.
Greg Day and Richard Day working on masonry when Rich was young. (Courtesy of Greg Day)
On top of meticulously planning and hauling stones with his father, Rich worked with Jeff on hundreds of jobs for his Portland-based piano moving business, the Piano Movers of Maine. He helped move 36 heavy grand pianos for the Bowdoin International Music Festival this summer.
“You can tell Richie is a Day boy,” Jeff said. “We’re part of a pretty tight-knit community here in Maine, especially in the working world and in the skilled trades world.”
Greg and Jeff have halted their work after the crash to be present for one another and Rich, who can only communicate through blinks. Greg’s close friend since the third grade, James Becker, has set up a donation fund for people to support the family while their income is paused and to help pay Rich’s medical bills. He has raised almost $9,000 from the Days’ immediate community.
“I can’t lift up a tool, I can’t think about that. I’m juggling this hole in my life, this potential hole in my life,” Greg said. “It’s a parent’s worst nightmare.”
Jeff said the relationship that Greg has with Rich is special, and that they are both perfectionists.
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“They can speak without speaking when it comes to design,” Jeff said. “They speak a common language. I don’t think that Greg could really work with anyone else, and vice versa.”
Jeff and Greg’s mother, Carol Benoit, is a quilter, and Jeff said he often notices traces of her quilt designs in Greg and Richie’s patio work.
It is possible that Greg will have to relocate to another state with Rich so that he can access the care he will need long-term, which may not be available in Maine. They are living minute-by-minute, waiting to see how Rich recovers.
“That financial burden after what (Rich) has to overcome, it’s too much to think of right now,” Greg said.
“We have to be hopeful, we have to think he’s alive for some reason after this,” Jeff said. “Because how else can we respond?”
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Tagged: car crash, family, local business
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
