A reason to be thankful

Nov. 28--Trillian Svoboda went to bed early on New Year's Eve 2011.

The 23-year-old Salina woman worked as a home health aide for Innovative Senior Care and had an early morning appointment with an elderly couple she assisted.

It was 8 p.m. when she climbed into bed, set the alarm and closed her eyes.

The next time Svoboda opened her eyes, it was seven days later and she was in a hospital bed at Salina Regional Health Center with a broken hip and leg, shattered pelvis and tailbone, ruptured spleen, torn liver and head trauma.

And she had no memory of how she got there.

According to a Saline County Sheriff's Office report, sometime during the evening of Dec. 31, Svoboda got out of bed, climbed into her Toyota Scion and began driving. At about 11 p.m., she lost control of her vehicle near the intersection of Old Highway 81 and Rose Hill Road near Interstate Highway 135.

The car went off the road, crossed back across the road and entered a ditch, where it flipped several times. Svoboda, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected from the vehicle.

"I was thrown 100 feet and the car rolled over me," Svoboda said she was told. "The car was on its wheels and running when I was found. The air bags never went off."

She was in a coma for a week. After she awakened, the next two years were a nightmare.

Svoboda said sheriff's officers were waiting until she woke up to charge her with drunken driving.

"It was New Year's Eve, and they were trying to tell me I was driving drunk," she said. "I felt embarrassed. I didn't do anything wrong. When I got out of the hospital, they were going to arrest me."

A problem with sleeping

But when the toxicology reports came back, only one substance was in her system -- Ambien, a powerful prescription sleep aid that Svoboda had been taking for the past three years for treatment of chronic insomnia.

"I've had sleep issues all my life," she said. "And it became worse when I put my son up for adoption when I was 19."

Svoboda's mother, Salinan Mary Sheffield, said her daughter has suffered from a mixture of insomnia and depression most of her life.

"When she was a baby, she had her days and nights mixed up and was always hyper," Sheffield said. "And recently she was under a lot of stress, having put her baby up for adoption and having problems in school and with a roommate who was trying to evict her."

Svoboda said she was taking a controlled dosage of the medication -- 10 milligrams -- with no side effects other than slight grogginess during the morning hours until that fateful New Year's Eve.

Can be side effects

Later, Svoboda discovered that in rare cases Ambien, which contains the active ingredient zolpidem, can cause side effects that might result in sleepwalking, sleep eating, sleep sex and perhaps most dangerously, sleep driving.

"You can do normal behavior patterns, but you're unconscious," she said.

Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recognized the possible dangers of Ambien. ABC News reported Jan. 10 that researchers found that 15 percent of women and 3 percent of men taking a regular 10 mg dose of Ambien -- the same dose Svoboda was taking -- had zolpidem levels high enough to cause alertness issues and driving impairment.

In extreme cases, sleep driving can fall under the category of "complex behaviors" that can be side effects of certain sleeping pills, according to the report.

As a result, the Food and Drug Administration recommended in January that doses of Ambien and other prescription sleeping aids be lowered, especially for women.

On a short-term basis

Dr. Scott Owings, a physician at Salina Family Healthcare Center, said sedatives such as Ambien usually are meant to be taken on a short-term basis to help set sleep cycles.

"Sometimes (taking) it long term is appropriate, but each case has to be taken on an individual basis," he said. "All sleep medications need to be prescribed with caution because they can have side effects that can be harmful."

In constant pain

Since the crash, Svoboda hasn't taken Ambien or any other sleep aid, even though she's been in constant pain and still has difficulty sleeping.

"My body is a constant reminder that I had an accident, and I just can't forget about it," said Svoboda, now 25. "Since the wreck, I can only stay in bed four hours at a time. My pain sets the tone for the day."

Trying to regain use of her broken and slowly healing body has been difficult for Svoboda, who came close to having her right leg amputated. She and her mother convinced doctors to install a flexible metal rod in her leg to save it. Svoboda also underwent a complete knee replacement.

Now deeply in debt

Unfortunately, Svoboda had no health insurance to pay for her surgeries or extensive rehabilitation. Her medical and rehabilitation costs soon skyrocketed to more than $750,000. Because of this, Svoboda said she'll eventually have to file for bankruptcy.

In the meantime, Svoboda is working two jobs to help pay her extensive bills -- one at Dillons pharmacy at Ohio and Cloud streets and the other at the Kansas National Guard Training Center.

Svoboda, a 2006 graduate of Salina Central High School, also has gone back to school at Kansas State University at Salina. She plans to major in social work and hopes to eventually earn a master's degree.

It's a major struggle

Attending college classes has been a major struggle since the crash, she said.

"I'm in pain all the time, and there's not a day I can sit through all of a class without having to get up," she said. "Because I had a head injury, learning has also been hard. I can't get my thoughts gathered fast enough to get it out of my mouth. I had to learn to talk, make sentences and write again."

Even with the traumas of the past two years, Svoboda said she still has a lot to be thankful for as she gets ready to celebrate her second Thanksgiving since the crash.

Thankful for so much

She's thankful for the family and friends who stuck by her, especially her boyfriend Ted Capps, whom she met last year through mutual friends.

"I'm so thankful for him," she said. "He's so patient with me. If not for him, I wouldn't be able to afford to go back to school."

Svoboda's mother is thankful her daughter survived the crash with most of her faculties intact. She said she still has nightmares of watching her daughter in a coma and being told several times by doctors that she'd better say goodbye to her.

"I prayed for her and cried for her," she said. "She has a fighting spirit. It was hard to see her crippled up, but she's doing wonderful now."

Life has not been kind

Emily Carpenter, a former Salinan who lives in Idaho, has been friends with Svoboda for more than 10 years. She said Svoboda's challenges during the past two years have broken her heart.

"It's been struggle after struggle," she said. "Life has not been kind to that girl, but she's a fighter. She doesn't let anything get her down. And she's such a kind person."

Carpenter said that whenever she and Svoboda get together in Salina, their favorite activity is to go to restaurants and buy a meal for a random senior citizen.

"Trillian always goes out of her way to take care of other people," she said. "She has a wonderful heart and a real affinity for seniors."

Wreck made her stronger

Svoboda said the crash actually has made her a better person and for that she is thankful.

"The wreck got me to this part of my life, and it's made me a stronger person," she said. "To see myself capable of what I was capable of, it's amazing."

-- Reporter Gary Demuth can be reached at 822-1405 or by email at gdemuth@salina.com.

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