Despite challenges, South Side man saw life as a glass half full
Gary Piso was a glass halffull kind of guy.
Despite the challenges life threw at him — and there were plenty, from polio as a child to a severe car accident, followed by devastating injuries suffered when he received a high-voltage shock — the Vietnam War veteran never let his circumstances break his spirit.
“My brother went through a lot in his life, and no matter what has happened to him, he was a survivor,” said his sister Diane Zion, of Lexington, S.C. “You just couldn’t keep him down.”
Mr. Piso, 71, died of complications from cardiovascular disease on Dec. 24.
A lifelong South Side resident, Mr. Piso went through most of his adult life as an amputee — the result of a workplace accident just days after his 23rd birthday.
“He was an industrial painter, working a weeklong job at [Weirton Steel],” recalled his son Gary Piso
II, of Ross.
His father, who was lefthanded, accidentally came into contact with a 6,900-volt power line while he was working inside a transmission tower, according to news reports in March 1971.
“It was the last day of the job, and they never turned off the electric in the tower, so my dad is up there painting and he reached for something with his left hand and the current just sucked him in,” his son said.
As a result, Mr. Piso’s left arm was amputated at the shoulder, and his left leg was removed at the knee. He also lost his right thumb and part of his right shoulder and suffered burns over 40% of his body.
“They didn’t expect him to survive with the extent of his injuries,” his son said.
Initially, Mr. Piso was given a 1% chance of survival, and when he defied those astronomical odds, doctors told him he could only expect to live about another 10 years, his son said.
Though he outlived the latter prediction by almost 40 years, the comeback wasn’t easy.
“He was in West Penn Hospital for close to a year, then he went to New York University Hospital for another year for rehab,” his sister said. “He learned to walk again and learned to use his right hand and even learned how to drive a car.
“He had to relearn all of his motor skills, and it was difficult because he had these horrible skin grafts. I was 17 at the time, and I remember them teaching me how to treat his burns and dress his wounds.”
Mr. Piso’s recovery was complicated by the mild paralysis he suffered after a childhood battle with polio and the serious injuries he sustained as a teen in a car accident.
For the rest of his life, he used an artificial leg but found it impossible to use an artificial arm, his sister said.
Throughout it all, her brother seemed to find a well of strength inside himself, Ms. Zion said.
“He had his troubles, but nothing got him down,” she recalled. “He learned to function on his own. He went to the grocery store himself once a week, and he went to St. Vladimir’s on 18th Street to get pierogies. He just didn’t want help; he wanted to be independent.”
“My dad was so strong, you could not keep him down,” Mr. Piso II said.
Before his accident, Mr. Piso enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in Vietnam during the war.
His experiences in the military and the years he witnessed his widowed mother working multiple jobs to support her five children served as an inspiration to him, Ms. Zion said.
“I think it was just the way we were brought up. I think he saw the work ethic and saw how my mother persevered under the circumstances she went through,” said Ms. Zion, who said their father died of a heart attack when her brother was 12 years old. “Gary could have just given up, but he didn’t.”
Mr. Piso had his share of demons too, at times, his son said.
“We were estranged for a while, until I had kids,” he recalled. “It wasn’t always easy, but when the times were good, they were so good. He was so loving, and despite his faults, I loved that man so, so much.”
Mr. Piso II said he will miss the opportunity to spend more time with his father, but he will cherish the happy times, especially the summers they spent at the family’s cabin at Pymatuning, in Crawford County.
“When I was a kid, it was the greatest place in the world,” he remembered.
Two years after his workplace accident, Mr. Piso was awarded $900,000 by a jury in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court — the largest personal injury award ever at the time in the county.
Permanently disabled, Mr. Piso used some of the money to purchase rental properties and to help his family.
“He was very generous,” his son said. “He would always help people any way that he could.”
“He was a good friend to a lot of people and I think that’s how he should be remembered,” his sister said.
Along with his son and sister, Mr. Piso is survived his sisters Linda R. Wallace, of Maricopa, Ariz., and Marian Szymkowiak, of South Park, and four grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his brother John Dennis Piso and his beloved nephew Nicholas Haniotakis.
His funeral was Monday.