Randle Woman Back on Her Feet After Skiing Accident
By Dameon Pesanti, The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
As an acrobatic skier since her early teens, taking huge jumps at high speeds was second nature for the 27-year-old; but the last one she hit in northern
On the last day of the season in mid-April, for all intents and purposes she fell from a two and a half story building and landed on her neck and shoulders, with her legs coming over the top of her head.
Crumpled on the mountainside, her lungs rattling with fluid, she couldn't feel her body, and inside her neck, the swelling was quickly cutting off the blood supply to her spinal cord.
Doctors said the pressure had to be lifted from the spine within six hours to minimize permanent damage.
"I knew I broke my neck, but I was trying to figure out where," Judd said.
As a physician's assistant, she knew the location mattered. It could mean the difference between using her arms again or controlling a wheelchair with a straw for the rest of her life.
A friend stabilized her neck until ski patrol arrived, and within 20 minutes she was on a helicopter and bound for an
Her injuries were very serious. She dislocated and fractured her hip, and broke a vertebrae at the base of her neck so badly it had to be removed and replaced.
Looking back on it now, she says the neck injury might have been a blessing because it blocked the signals of excruciating pain running from her body toward her brain.
For the first few days, the doctors kept her heavily sedated. She surfaced in and out of consciousness in those days, occasionally seeing people standing near her bed, not always knowing who, but through each wave of fog she remembered reading a poster someone hung in her room, "believe."
After she came to, it was all she could to do bring a forearm to her chest.
"It's all she's going to get," her young neurosurgeon said to her parents in front of her.
"My dad almost killed him," Judd said.
Since her spinal chord wasn't severed, she thought she could get better. She just had to try.
Her hospital social worker who helped her plan her care and reduce expenses told her, "With your insurance, you're not going to
The Judds fired him.
While the Judds were navigating Jocelyn's insurance, people in
Local residents raised
It was enough for Judd to go to
"Without those two, I wouldn't have been able to go and I wouldn't have made this significant of a recovery ... I feel like it saved my life," Judd said.
Her parents have stayed by her side for months. They moved her out of her apartment while she was in the hospital, flew down to
On
Now she's back on her feet, looking forward to work and hoping to ski this winter. In the meantime, she's still very weak and has to work on restoring her body's muscle control. Her legs spasm sometimes, and her hands are still pretty weak. She'll do about another year's worth of physical therapy, but no one's sure how much function she'll regain. For part of her recovery, her doctors are torturing her with rest.
"They want me to try knitting, which I think sounds horrible," she said. "I'm usually not sitting down long enough to try something like that."
Currently Judd is back in
Being home has given her time to connect with old friends and extend her gratitude to all of the people that stepped up to help her.
"I just want to get out there how much I appreciate the support from the community. They all really rallied behind me on this one and helped me get better," Judd said.
Judd said her family is touched and extremely grateful for the outpouring of support from
The support traveled as swiftly as the word Jocelyn was hurt.
"My parents didn't ask for anything, but everyone we know was just pouring out, trying to help in anyway they could," Judd said. "This community doesn't have a lot of money, but they raised quite a bit to help with my medical bills. It's crazy ... it was all out of the kindness of their hearts."
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