SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — For nearly seven years Joe Pasqualini’s story of survival and recovery following a devastating crash seemed destined for what was always considered miraculous: a happy ending.

Last week that ending changed radically. In the early morning hours of Sunday, Dec. 18, Joe Pasqualini died.

It wasn’t the first time the 28-year-old had passed away. That moment came shortly after 3 a.m. on Jan. 18, 2009, about 200 yards from the family’s home in Slippery Rock Township.

Joe, then 21, and his older brother, Edward, then 22, were walking home along Route 173 near Rock Falls Park when a car hit them from behind.

The car, a Toyota Scion XB sedan driven by Matthew Menchyk, then 28, of Meridian, hit Joe the hardest. Joe was thrown onto the vehicle’s hood and smashed the back of his head on its windshield, leaving him with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries.

In the immediate aftermath, medical professionals at three different hospitals proclaimed Joe’s chances of survival and recovery virtually nonexistent. At Allegheny General Hospital, where Joe was initially taken, an MRI of his brain came back looking like a scan of a corpse.

None of that seemed to matter to Joe, who by June of that year returned home with an improbably-functioning brain. He was a quadriplegic and had to rely on a ventilator and constant care; he would often have problems creating and retaining short term memories; but he was alive. And he and his family had a mission.

The question for the Pasqualinis was never whether Joe was going to live and recover. He was already doing that. It was what would be done with the time they had, through a miracle, been given together.

Life after death

The thing about miraculous recoveries is that they often seem less miraculous with time. Doctors give a medical explanation, however implausible; the story of perseverance and recovery becomes well-worn and familiar.

That was never the case with Joe Pasqualini, or for his parents, Jim and Kelley. From the moment their son came back from the dead — revived by Slippery Rock Fire and Rescue EMTs — Joe had a story to tell.

The one the family tried to tell the world has played out in Jim’s speeches and presentations to DUI victims and offenders; students at SRU; and organizations like the Western Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association, which honored Joe last year with its Comeback Award. Joe appeared in montages and short videos his family uploaded to Facebook. For years Jim has spoken out against drunken driving with the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The goal is simultaneously simple and monumental: “To eliminate anyone else having to go through what (we) had to go through,” Jim said.

The story Joe told his family — that he ascended to heaven, saw gates and the people inside them, and was told by a gatekeeper that it wasn’t yet his time — is, improbably, far more fantastic than his miraculous recovery. It reinforced the faith of Jim and Kelley, who continue to thank God for their son’s life. And it gave them strength during the lows Joe experienced in the years following the crash.

“Every second was an unbelievable gift,” Kelley said. “We know it, and we appreciated every one of them.”

Kelley Pasqualini said her son, from the beginning, always had a goal:

“Mom,” he told her, “I just want to walk.”

In pursuit of that the Pasqualinis spared no expense or exertion. Joe participated in experimental treatments across the country: he worked with Project Walk in Boston, traveled to Boca Raton, Fla., for a $15,000 shot that did absolutely nothing; and went to Georgia for gyro stimulation treatment which seemed to help him regain some movement capability. At home, physical therapy students from Slippery Rock University would visit to help him with stretching exercises.

Despite the challenges and disappointments, there were golden years — entire years — for Joe. From 2013 to 2015 it seemed he truly had beaten the odds completely. There were no hospital stays, no pneumonia or seizures.

“We thought this was the new normal,” Jim said. “We thought that we were going to live like this forever.”

This year, with Joe’s health suddenly on a downward swing, Joe gave his parents reason to smile. He expressed interest in the election and registered to vote. His parents took him to get a PennDot-issued ID card and Joe told them he wanted to be an organ donor.

Often Joe had trouble sleeping. His brain, damaged though it was, just wouldn’t shut off sometimes. He would hear phones ringing or people shouting that weren’t there. On those nights, Jim would sit up with his son and try to take his mind off the chaos only he could hear.

“Those were my favorite times,” Jim said. “It’d just be me and Joe sitting there for hours, and we would talk and laugh and joke.”

Sometimes Joe would apologize for keeping his father up all night, or get frustrated with his memory issues and call himself stupid. There was no place he’d rather be, he told Joe.

Every night, even those when Joe managed to find peaceful rest, his father would tell him the same thing: “I love you with all my heart, my precious son.”

Joe’s response would never change. He’d roll his eyes and remind Jim that he’d told him the same thing a million times now.

“Get used to it,” Pasqualini would say to his son. “‘Cause I’m going to tell you a million more.”

Seizures common

In the six years and 11 months since Jan. 18, 2009, Joe Pasqualini had been dead or on the brink of death multiple times. “Horrific” pneumonia was a routine threat to his health. Doctors began running out of antibiotic options to treat the infections that attacked his lungs and urinary tract.

Seizures, despite medication to keep them in check, were common — though they were often relatively mild. The most violent episode Jim can remember came one day while the family was driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Jim bear-hugged his son to keep him from harming himself further during the attack, which lasted about 45 minutes.

Through all of it — and there were many peaks and valleys in the years following the crash — the Pasqualinis said they never once doubted their son was going to be OK. During the bad times, Jim’s mind always went back to the day he and Kelley had, at the urging of Allegheny General Hospital, planned Joe’s first funeral.

“How many times was he supposed to die? He always pulled through,” Jim would think. “This is Joe. He’s tough as hell.”

That’s where Jim’s mind went a couple of weeks ago, when Joe started having a seizure at home. No big deal; a shot of Ativan, a tranquilizer, should calm his son, as it had so many times before.

But this time it didn’t. This time Joe’s seizures never seemed to end. There were more shots of Ativan; and other medications. He was ultimately taken to the intensive care unit of UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, where doctors medicated him into a comalike state to try and stop the attacks.

On Wednesday Joe seemed, for a brief moment, to be coming out of it. He opened his eyes and told a doctor his name: “Joey Pasqualini.” The same two words he first said to Slippery Rock EMTs after they revived him almost seven years ago.

Then another seizure hit, the doctors pushed another double dose of Ativan, and Joe went back under. He would never open his eyes or speak again — though at the time Jim and Kelley had no way of knowing that.

“Believe it or not, we still did not think that was the end,” Pasqualini said.

It wasn’t until the hospital’s neurological team showed them a CT scan of Joe’s brain — “black everywhere,” meaning dead brain tissue — and told the family that their only option was emergency brain surgery that the possibility started to sink in.

The pressure on Joe’s brain, doctors told the family, was immense: three times what it should be. So bad that Joe’s brain was physically pushing against the inside of his skull. The only option was to drill holes and install a drain to try and bleed off some of the pressure.

On Friday the bad news continued to come. Joe’s brain had started to seize yet again, and the pressure had built too fast for the newly-installed drain to handle.

Jim did something he’d never done before: signed a do-not-resuscitate order for his 28-year-old son and told Joe that it was time to stop fighting.

Friday, Dec. 17 was Joe Pasqualini’s last day alive.

It also was his father’s birthday.

Looking for justice

For Jim and Kelley Pasqualini, the story of their son’s life after death is a triumphant one. Joe overcame tremendous odds by simply surviving, never mind that he went on to make strides in his recovery — both physically and mentally.

But Pasqualini’s story isn’t without unresolved conflict — whether it’s the family’s struggle to forgive the drunken driver who hit Joe and his older brother, Ed, or their simmering anger and disappointment with Butler County prosecutors’ handling of their son’s case.

“My battle all these years is, I wanted to forgive Matthew Menchyk,” said Kelly.

She and Jim say Menchyk, now 36, hasn’t made it easy. The family was incensed by his demeanor and actions during court proceedings. Jim and Kelley said he failed to take responsibility for the crash in a statement before his sentencing.

After the criminal case was resolved the family said the first two checks Menchyk sent them — court-mandated restitution toward Joe’s medical bills — bounced. It was “a slap in the face,” said Kelley Pasqualini.

Menchyk also refused to meet with Joe, and the two never spoke. The family says he hasn’t reached out to them in the week following Joe’s death.

Jim and Kelley say Menchyk’s conduct amounts to “pure arrogance,” in their minds. Over the years it’s been a struggle to live by the Christian precepts that Joe reinforced with his story of seeing the gates of heaven.

“You battle with this anger, knowing ... he’s living his life and here’s Joe, fighting for his,” Kelley said. “He’s never said, ‘I am sorry.’ Not once.”

Menchyk, who no longer lives in Butler according to his parents, did not respond to an interview request.

The Pasqualinis also feel hung out to dry by the Butler County District Attorney’s Office and ADA Ben Simon, who handled the criminal case against Menchyk.

Jim and Kelley say Simon made important decisions about the case without seeking their input, sometimes failed to keep the family updated on the hearing schedule for the case, never bothered to visit or speak with Joe himself, and gave away far too much in cutting a deal with Menchyk and his attorney, Michael Pawk.

Menchyk was initially charged with two counts of aggravated assault by vehicle while DUI — a second degree felony — as well as misdemeanor counts of DUI, reckless endangerment and several summary driving violations.

Ultimately, according to online court documents, seven of the nine charges against Menchyk were dismissed in a deal that saw him plead guilty to DUI and one misdemeanor count of reckless endangerment.

He served a total of three days in jail, the family said, followed by a term of probation and was ordered to pay restitution to the Pasqualinis, who say it seems like Menchyk got everything he asked for from prosecutors.

For Jim Pasqualini, who retired from the Army after 30 years and spent much of his professional life negotiating contracts for the federal government, it’s an inscrutable state of affairs. He’s decided that Butler County prosecutors are either “lazy or incompetent.”

Simon declined to go into specifics, but maintained that he handled the case properly and kept the family informed as the matter, which took years to play out in court, proceeded.

“We are very sorry to hear of Joseph’s passing,” Simon said.

Because Joe died in Pittsburgh, the family now awaits a ruling from the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office on the manner of Joe’s death. Jim believes they will classify the manner of Joe’s death as a homicide — something he hopes will require Butler County authorities to once again consider whether to charge Menchyk with a crime.

“I have no idea what it’s (Joe’s death certificate) going to say, but the system says a homicide must be investigated and prosecuted,” Jim said. “I believe in the system, and I believe in this country. I just want justice to be served.”