Michael Nolte Doesn’t Look Like A Burn Victim

By Sandy Selby

Michael Nolte died before he arrived at the hospital. As the medical helicopter lifted him from the site of the collision, Nolte’s soul took flight from his burned body. He saw a light-filled tunnel and was overcome with a sense of peace. His niece had died a few months earlier and she was there to welcome him; he could hear the music of her laughter just ahead.
Moments before, he’d been in agony. His right arm was badly burned, every hair had been razed from his head and face, his left ear was a melted mass, and worse still were the bone-deep burns on his legs and feet. One of the flight medics tried to keep him talking. “We’re going to Columbia,” she told him.
“Oh, that will be fine,” Nolte said. “I used to live in Columbia.”
Nolte’s heart stopped and so did the unfathomable pain. For a few precarious moments, he was in limbo — death or life, the pearly gates or the burn unit at Columbia’s University Hospital.
Heaven was waiting for Nolte.

It’s still waiting.

The morning of the wreck in May 2003, Nolte, a professional wedding coordinator and event planner, was driving from his Leawood, Kan., home to Mexico, Mo., to plan the funeral of a cherished family friend. It was early and traffic was light. His cruise control was set on 65, but he was driving in the left lane and that was almost a fatal mistake. The state trooper who pulled Nolte over told him that driving too long in the left lane is against the law. Nolte didn’t know that. He didn’t know he had a right to refuse the officer’s request to join him in the cruiser, a Ford Crown Victoria with a history of fuel tank explosions.
Nolte was in the passenger seat when a passing truck veered to the right and struck the back of the cruiser. He watched Trooper Michael Newton die before his eyes as the two men sat trapped together in a gasoline-fueled inferno. If not for the heroism of two strangers who reached into the burning car to drag out Nolte, he would have died that day, too.
His death during the helicopter flight turned out to be temporary, but even after he was revived there was little reason to expect him to survive the day.
The medical helicopter was ordered to take him to University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., but about halfway to that destination, the pilot got a call that the KU burn unit was full. The next closest burn unit that could treat a patient as badly injured as Nolte was at University Hospital in Columbia.
“I was being taken home,” Nolte says. “I now make my living in Kansas City, but I’ll always consider central Missouri home.”

Longtime Columbia residents will remember Nolte as the owner of Nolte’s Bridal, a successful downtown wedding shop. The store was the culmination of his years of experience in the wedding business, first as a photographer and florist, and later as a wedding planner.
He opened his first Columbia business in 1980, a floral shop in the corner of the bridal store at 916 E. Broadway.
“For two years, I watched the customers of the bridal shop leave empty-handed, and I was learning what the owners were doing wrong,” he says. Educated by real-life demonstrations of what not to do in the bridal business, Nolte began to formulate a business plan. Two years later, he bought the bridal shop, remodeled it, renamed it and expanded it. “I had two businesses operating on two different floors of the building: Nolte’s Flowers on one floor and Nolte’s Bridal on the other.”
He became the go-to guy for Columbia’s big events and his wedding customers liked being able to choose the gowns and the flowers in the same location. “The role of wedding coordinator emerged from that,” he says. “I was coordinating weddings before I ever put out a shingle that said ‘Michael Nolte, Wedding Coordinator.’ ”
Bolstered by his success in Columbia, Nolte opened a satellite store in Overland Park in 1993, to fill a void in a market with plenty of big spenders but without a high-end bridal shop. The satellite business boomed but Nolte’s life as a commuter was exhausting and it was taking its toll on his family: wife Barbie and daughters Emma-Lea, Justine and newborn Caroline.
“My Columbia brides missed me and didn’t want to plan with my employees — they wanted the owner,” he says. “And my Kansas City store employees needed the owner to be there full time for training and to oversee the growth. It became apparent I needed to close the Columbia business.”
The Kansas City business grew in both size and reputation, the Nolte family was living under one roof seven days a week and Nolte says he felt like he was on top of his game. “I was a lucky guy with what the press called a Norman Rockwell life.”
At age 48, his picture-perfect life was over.
“I’m Mr. Event Planner,” Nolte says. “People pay me to be in control of things for them while their lives are crazy and emotionally charged. And boom, that all just literally — no pun intended — came to a crashing halt. I couldn’t be in charge of anything, not even how my own body functioned on an infant’s level. I was completely dependent on the kindness of strangers.”

“I subscribe to the philosophy that to whom much is given, much should be expected.” Nolte says. “God blesses us with years of plenty and he expects us to prepare for years of lean because the ‘lean’ will happen.”
Nolte’s lean time began at 6:54 a.m., May 22, 2003, at Interstate 70 mile marker 47, but in many ways the wreck and its aftermath would reveal just how rich Nolte’s life was. The town Nolte had left behind in 1995 was quick to rally around him when word of his condition spread throughout Columbia.
“The very first people in the emergency room were Judy Buckler and Connie Agan,” Nolte says. “They had worked with me at Nolte’s for 15 years. They are sisters and they are like family to us.” When the Highway Patrol called Nolte’s wife with the news that he had been injured, the family raced to the University of Kansas Hospital only to learn that he had been diverted to Columbia. It would take them hours to reach him and they didn’t want him to be alone.
“My sister called them [Buckler and Agan] and said ‘We can’t get there, but can you?’ ”
The sisters arrived at the ER shortly after Nolte did. They did not correct the staff when they were presumed to be family. They were quickly outfitted in gowns and gloves — the better to protect the burn patient from infection — and escorted to his side. Michael was burned and swollen and, according to his own account, “smelled like a smoldering log.”
Buckler and Agan didn’t know what to expect when they walked into that emergency room. They hadn’t been told about the nature of Nolte’s injuries, only that he’d been in a car accident, and they were could barely stand the shock of what they saw.
“That was the most horrifying sight I ever saw in my life,” Buckler says. “If you’ve ever seen a burn victim then you know, and if you haven’t, you just can’t imagine. It was just terrible.”
Somehow, despite everything, Nolte knew his friends were there. He recalls Buckler taking his uninjured hand in hers and saying: “Michael J., this is Judy. Connie is here with me. Squeeze my hand if you know it’s me.”
He squeezed.

How many Columbians can fit into a hospital waiting room? More than anyone would have thought possible as friends came rushing to the hospital to provide emotional support for Barbie and the Nolte family. Support came in other ways, too, and Nolte still gets emotional as he recalls one particular gift his family received.
“From Day 1, Lyria Bartlett was there,” Nolte says. “I’m told the waiting room was a zoo and Barbie’s cell phone was ringing nonstop. Somehow Lyria just appeared in the chaos and pressed a note in her hand. The note stated that her B&B, Missouri Manor, was available for the family for a nap, a shower, an overnight, for as long as we needed it. Lyria housed my wife and two of my daughters and my parents for more then 50 nights at no charge. I think about her generosity and I can hardly talk about it.”
On those nights when the Missouri Manor was booked, another local hotelier came to the family’s aid. Ed Baker, owner of the Holiday Inn Select Executive Center, had become acquainted with Nolte when the two worked together on wedding receptions at the hotel. When Baker found out that Nolte was in the hospital for an extended stay, he offered the family complimentary rooms any time they needed them.
“There was a tremendous outpouring from people in Columbia from my business days, old neighborhood days, and the Miss Columbia pageant days,” Nolte says.
As the former executive director of the Miss Columbia pageant, Nolte had helped prepare three Columbia pageant winners for their ascension to the Miss Missouri title, and one Miss Columbia went a step further.
“Debbye Turner, of course, was the ultimate when she was crowned Miss America,” Nolte says. “She is still a very close friend of mine.”
Turner joined the throng of friends and hospital staffers who were present the day Nolte was released from University Hospital 10 weeks after he had arrived. “I couldn’t believe she had flown in to see me and it was the day I was leaving! But she didn’t mind. It was very emotional for both of us.”

Perhaps even more unbelievable was the fact that Nolte was going home at all. His recovery had been so excruciating at times that he found himself wishing for a permanent trip back through that heavenly hallway. Fortunately for Nolte, death found a formidable foe in Dr. Boyd Terry.
Terry wasn’t inclined to offer platitudes or false hopes. Although the doctor took over all control from a self-acknowledged control freak during the most difficult and painful episode in Nolte’s life, he won Nolte’s respect and affection for life.
“I didn’t want the answers to most of my questions because I was afraid of what those answers were going to be, so I didn’t ask and he didn’t offer,” Nolte says. “He made no promises.”
But Terry did assemble a top-notch staff of nurses and therapists to carry out his instructions and Nolte, he says, was a very motivated patient.
“He had a significant injury that threatened his profession and livelihood,” Terry says. “He wanted to be successful and I couldn’t have asked for a more cooperation from him.”
Most of the treatments were painful and unpleasant, but Nolte didn’t shrink from them.
“I said bring on the rehab, bring on the physical therapy, bring on the psych guy,” Nolte says. “I saw too many people in that burn unit give up because the pain was so bad. They were angry at the occupational therapist because she wouldn’t write a prescription for a wheelchair they didn’t need. I was not going to be one of those people.”
One aspect of the care that Nolte initially found hard to embrace was the psychological therapy, but that changed as his recovery progressed and he began to recall more details from the crash that nearly claimed him. He believes many accident victims suffer from the same delayed reaction and believes loved ones often fail to consider psychological injuries.
“Once you look good on the outside, people think you must be fine on the inside,” Nolte says. “You aren’t. Anniversaries are painful and there are triggering experiences. People need to have patience with their loved one who has gone through an experience like this.”
A significant moment in his psychological healing came on the day he was able to forgive Paul Daniel, the truck driver whose carelessness set in motion the tragedy at mile marker 47. That act, as much as any obstacle Nolte overcame during his physical recovery, impressed his physician. “I told him that the most important thing he did was being able to forgive,” Terry says.

Through it all, Nolte felt uplifted by the power of prayer. A devout Catholic, Nolte had a strong faith foundation, but his faith had never been tested to this degree. He credits the experience with fortifying his relationship with God.
“I was very aware of people praying for me. I could literally feel it. I mean that. I would be in the debridement tank and they would be ripping off the rotted or burned skin, changing bandages adhered to my muscles and it hurt so bad I didn’t think I could stand it for another moment, I know the only thing that pulled me through that was people praying for me. My whole spiritual life and my belief with God has been tremendously deepened and impacted in such a way that it will never be threatened or weakened or lessened in any way.”
As he began to look back on the life-changing events that unfolded, he began to ask himself, “For what was I spared?” He decided to write a book, a brutally honest, no-detail-left-unshared book about his experiences in the hope that someone else might benefit from what he has learned.
Burned But Not Broken is Nolte’s autobiographical account of the events leading up to the crash in 2003, his medical treatment, his unexpected setbacks, and his struggle to say thank-you to people for whom “Thank-you” doesn’t seem adequate.
Nolte is not a man inclined to do things halfway. When he threw a party to say thanks to the people who had helped him, he threw a big party — a black-tie gala for 250 people. His Heroes & Angels celebration in August 2005 brought together a ballroom full of the people who received tokens of Nolte’s esteem. Among those he honored that night were his supportive family, his medical heroes from University Hospital, and the two men who stopped at the scene of the accident and pulled him from the burning car. One of those men, David Bryan, recently received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism that day, an honor Nolte set into motion with his heartfelt letter of nomination.
That glittering event was Nolte’s victory celebration, but he didn’t let the story end there. He immersed himself in writing his book and in a new passion for educating the public about organ and tissue donation.
Nolte has experience with organ and tissue donation, both as a family member of a donor and as a recipient. That dual perspective makes him a powerful spokesman for organizations such as Kansas City’s Gift of Life.
“Michael was the family decision-maker when his niece Micah died and chose to donate her organs, but not skin or bone,” say Keith Anderson, Gift of Life executive director. “Ironically, a year later that decision affected Nolte, who learned firsthand how the donation of skin and bone can also save a life – his. Michael, like many others, assumed that skin and bone donation eliminates the option of an open-casket funeral.
In fact, that’s not the case at all, according to Anderson. He says Nolte is now on a mission to clear up those misunderstandings about organ and tissue donation.

Nolte doesn’t look like a burn victim. By faithfully following his regimen of therapy and skin care, he has been able to recover his mobility. He wears makeup to camouflage the fact that large patches of his facial pigment were burned away. He pauses to put moisturizer on his lips.
“My lips dry out all the time because the tissue in my lips is like the thickness of a wet Kleenex,” he says. He rubs cream on his left hand, the one that bears only the faintest hint of roughness to suggest that this skin is any different from the skin on his right hand. For a time, the only skin that covered his left hand was donor skin. It eventually was grafted with skin harvested from his stomach. Likewise his legs, ears and feet were all saved by donor bone and skin.
His easy smile doesn’t betray the relentless pain he feels in his feet and legs. The bone in his right leg was nearly burned through. A triumph of medicine allowed him to keep the leg, but as long as he keeps it, pain will be his constant companion.
Nolte works in a world where appearances are everything and he looks the part of the put-together wedding coordinator, but that’s not the only reason he applies special makeup, keeps his hair stylishly cut, and puts on a well-tailored suit each day.
“I have to be approachable in my career, on the stage and in front of the camera,” he says. “My appearance cannot be distracting. If they are comfortable they will concentrate on the transaction if it’s in the store or the message if it’s in a speaking engagement. Maybe in my sharing my story, people are lifted up and they feel they can cope one more day.”
Nolte cherishes the letters and e-mails he receives from people who have been encouraged after reading his book or hearing him speak, and he keeps them all. “Those letters,” he says, “answer the question ‘For what was I spared?’ ”

Michael Nolte doesn’t look like a burn victim.
Michael Nolte looks like hope.

Meet Michael

Michael Nolte will be in Columbia for a book signing from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 11, at the Barnes & Noble store in the Columbia Mall.
Proceeds from the sales of Burned But Not Broken go into a scholarship fund Nolte set up for the daughters of his rescuers, Troy Brinkoetter and David Bryan, and the son of Trooper Michael Newton.