WHEN Robert Niesler awoke in a hospital room after surviving a serious car crash on Valentine's Day, his first concern was his wife and family.
The news was grim: his wife was dead.
Patricia and Robert Niesler had recently retired and were just starting to travel more when tragedy struck.
Niesler, 62, and his wife, Patricia, 60, were driving back to their home in Oakbank from a two-week vacation in Texas when they got into a multi-car crash on Interstate 35 around 7 p.m.
Robert suffered head trauma, broken ribs, three broken vertebrae and a broken arm.
He is in Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center in Waco, Texas and is expected to recover. His wife, Patricia, was dead on the scene.
"They told Rob yesterday that he was in the hospital and his first words were, "Where's Pat?" Patricia's younger sister, Barb Flamand, said through tears from her Winnipeg home Tuesday. "They told him that Pat didn't make it and he said 'I love that girl.'"
Robert then asked how his three children -- Rob, 35, Jackie, 34, and Barb, 33 -- were holding up after they heard about the crash.
On Tuesday night, he was doing much better and was able to talk to his son on the phone for a few minutes.
The couple's youngest daughter, Barb Niesler, flew to Texas to be with her father. Jackie Ogilvie, Patricia's daughter from a previous marriage, stayed in Winnipeg to help make funeral arrangements for her mother. Their son, Rob, was in Alberta when he got the news from a state trooper. He is now in Oakbank.
The couple was in Elmo, Texas for a few weeks visiting Patricia's brother and sister-in-law. They enjoyed the area so much they decided to buy a trailer to use as a vacation home, just as Patricia's brother had done last year.
The couple had recently retired -- Patricia was a teacher and Robert founded Oakbank Contractors -- and were starting to do more travelling.
"They had this great life and it only just began because she just retired and they were getting Bob to ease up on his work," Flamand said. "It was going to be an adventure and Texas was the beginning." The couple also planned a trip to France in the spring, she added.
The Nieslers' family in Manitoba is trying to have Robert airlifted to a hospital closer to home.
Flamand and her younger sister, Marj Miller, flipped through old photo albums on Tuesday trying to make sense of why such a giving woman was killed in such a tragic way and on Valentine's Day.
The sisters also reminisced about the couple's deep love and told the story of how Patricia and Robert Niesler first met.
"A group of people who know Pat and Bob thought these two people would be perfect for each other and they got them together," Flamand said. "They were so perfectly matched and my sister made his house a home again."
The couple wed in the backyard of their Oakbank home in 1996, when their three children were in their 20s. They had both been previously married.
They loved going to their cottage on Lake of the Woods, where they spent a lot of time playing with their 10-year-old granddaughter.
"He won't want to go there anymore, I don't think," Flamand said through tears.
Family has been told the crash happened when an 18-wheeler slowed for construction, and a sedan behind it braked.
The Nieslers, in a pickup behind the sedan, braked and veered to an outside lane.
A second 18-wheeler reportedly struck the pickup at high speed, pushing it into the sedan and into the first tractor-trailer.
Funeral arrangements haven't been finalized.
meghan.hurley@freepress.mb.ca
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