Volunteer Speedway
Tech official back to spec after struggle with Covid
By Robert Holman
DirtonDirt.com weekend editor
Alton Wilson in the Volunteer pits. (wellsracingphotos.com)
BULLS GAP, Tenn. — Alton Wilson doesn’t mind discussing his near-fatal bout with Covid-19. What he can remember, anyway.
The Clinton, S.C., resident and longtime race official who spent nearly a month in a coma last fall returned to his track duties April 14 during the Kyle Larson Presents Late Model Challenge powered by Tezos at Volunteer Speedway.
Working with the crew of longtime friend and fellow South Carolinian Kelley Carlton, Wilson was happy to be back at the racetrack. Actually he’s just happy to be back, period.
“Oh, this is what I love. So it’s wonderful to be back being with the guys and stuff,” said Wilson as he helped Kelley Carlton’s KelCar Motorsports crew button things up following Mike Marlar’s $20,000 triumph. “It’s, you know, it’s a miracle that I’m even here, right? So it makes it even that much more special.”
The 60-year-old Wilson has worked with Carlton since the mid-’90s. The two worked together at Laurens (S.C.) Speedway, where Wilson first got his start. He’s since helped officiate and done technical inspection at hundreds of dirt racing events, including the Wild West Shootout, Gateway Dirt Nationals, Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, Castrol FloRacing Night in America, Southern All Stars, Ultimate Southeast Late Model Series and others.
Wilson’s return to the track highlights an unlikely recovery. According to Carlton, Wilson’s family and friends were called into the hospital as his condition worsened. Doctors didn’t expect him to survive.
“(He) nearly died. Like, they called me and said he wouldn’t make it through the night when I was in Texas,” Carlton said.
It’s one of the many days during Wilson’s nearly four-month hospitalization that he simply doesn’t remember.
“I went in the hospital Sept. 1 and I was pretty much unconscious the majority of September, so (Covid) just knocked me down that fast,” Wilson said. “I don’t have a lot of recollection of things that went on while I was in the hospital. I remember going in the hospital and being put in a regular room and I remember the doctor telling me, ‘We’re going to move you to ICU just to keep an eye on you.’ Well, I used to be a paramedic. So I knew he wouldn’t put me there just to keep an eye on me.
“I was like, this is not getting any better, you know. The only thing I remember about ICU is two days and I was on what they call BiPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure) then, which actually blows air into my lungs and gives me oxygen and helps me breathe. Those are the only two days I remember. I don’t remember getting my chest tube. I don’t remember getting intubated, anything like that … getting put on a ventilator. Nothing.”
After almost four weeks in a coma with little sign of improvement, doctors and family made the tough decision to remove Wilson’s ventilator. Family members were called in first, however, and Wilson was given through the weekend to respond.
“When I went on the ventilator, the odds were very low of anybody coming off the ventilator,” Wilson said. “They called (family) in on a Friday and they were going to give me to the following Monday and if I wasn’t turning around then they were going to take me off the ventilator. And that Monday I woke up.
“I woke up in October and my family was standing around me. They were smiling, you know, was glad I was awake and whatnot. And I was just kind of looking around like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then they told me what date it was. So I was like, I have lost a month of my life. So from that point on, I just started putting up a fight for it. That’s the only way I can put it.”
That fight included a lengthy rehabilitation. Wilson dropped 57 pounds — going from 235 pounds to 178 — much of which was muscle. He had a number of other medical issues which stemmed from the coronavirus. And he was forced to learn to walk again.
“They were expecting me to be on the ventilator for months and I think I was on the ventilator for like three weeks. I still had my (tracheostomy tube) when I went to went to rehab and they were slowly weaning me off the ventilator in rehab,” recalled Wilson. “I was still on a ventilator and everything and nothing was working. They said I had a stroke. Also had a heart attack while I was unconscious, but luckily no damage with the stroke or the heart attack. So there was no muscle damage, there’s no brain damage of any kind.
“But it’s been a it’s been a struggle because I had to I had to learn to walk again. When I went to Greenville, S.C., to a rehab hospital there, the first time that physical therapy was going to just sit me up on the side of the bed — not get me up or anything — just set me up, I set up for three seconds and I fell back on the bed. I couldn’t even hold myself up.”
Wilson said his daughter, who lives in Chicago, “dropped everything” to come down and help him, staying until he went back to work. Now that he’s feeling better — short of getting a little tired from time to time — Wilson is looking forward to a busy season.
“It’s good to be back,” Wilson said, adding with a smile. “It’s great to be back.”
