Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408290016
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KENNETH SINGLETARY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Mills was driving his truck north on the interstate near exit 118 in April 1991 when a car driven by an 86-year-old man going the wrong way forced him off the road. He slid across the southbound lane and down an 80-foot hillside.
He was left dangling by his seat belt inside the cab, paralyzed by a crushed vertebrae in his neck. Rescuers arrived and took him to Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he found himself alone, almost 1,000 miles from his Adams, Wis., home.
That's when Dilello, whom Mills calls his "guardian angel," appeared at his bedside.
"If that was my husband so far from home, I'd want someone to go see about him," Dilello said.
Mills, who turned 81 Saturday, and Dilello, 55, have been friends ever since. They have visited each other, and they talk on the phone about once a week.
Last week, Mills was back in Christiansburg to give a deposition in a civil lawsuit he filed after the accident. Max Jenkins of Radford, Mills' lawyer, said that suit could be settled within two months if he can get a deposition from a Texas man who witnessed the crash.
But Mills was also in the area to renew his friendship with Dilello.
"If it hadn't been for her and that [nurse's] aide up there at that hospital, I'd have starved to death. I didn't have the use of my hands or arms or nothing," he said.
Dilello, whose husband and brother are truckers, kept Mills company during his monthlong stay at Roanoke Memorial. She was there when depression and loneliness hit hard him after his wife and son had to return home, and she arranged to have a Lifeline Ambulance Service of Blacksburg take Mills to Wisconsin when he recovered enough to travel.
Dilello said she hasn't minded coming to Mills' aid. Lending a helping hand is something she learned from her mother.
"It's not strange for me, 'cause I help a lot of people."
Mills, with a thick shock of white hair and a strong voice, still has gratitude in his eyes when he looks at Dilello.
"That's what I call her, my guardian angel."
He's in a wheelchair, but he's feeling better, he said, after an operation in which doctors rebuilt his vertebrae from bones in his hip.
"The old man is still carrying the bucket. He hasn't kicked it yet," he said.
After last week's visit, Dilello and Mills don't know when or if they might next get together. Dilello and her husband made the long drive up to Wisconsin last summer, but getting time off from her new job at Wolverine Gasket Co. in Blacksburg might be difficult.
"I made the remark to my husband that I may never see him again, but my husband said, 'No, we'll go up again.'" she said.
by CNB