An Amazing Lady
Kris and Jim went deer hunting October 19, l999, as they had for many years before. It was cold and lightly raining. This particular day, Kris, driving the truck, dropped Jim off at the road near his deer stand, and drove down the road to the site of her deer stand. It was about 7:00 am, and they had agreed that Kris would come back and pick Jim up at 12:00 noon, to return to the camp for lunch.
Kris Kris, using a climber, went about twenty five feet up the tree. While reaching for her safety strap, a welded part of the stand broke away. She and the stand fell to the ground. She doesn't remember the actual impact with the ground, but when she opened her eyes, she was lying on her back, still in the seat, feet in the climber and looking at the sky. She said that she didn't feel a lot of pain, but knew she was injured badly because she couldn't feel or move her legs. She landed in bushes, and remembers having to bite off some limbs of the bush to get them out of her face. To rest her neck, she tried to lean her head backward to the ground, but that caused a lot of pain to her back. She propped up with her arms, from the elbows down to her hands, on the ground, to keep some of the strain off her neck. She noticed blood on her left hand, and saw that her forefinger was attached only by a piece of skin. She tried calling for help, hoping the sound would carry through the quiet winter woods. No one was near enough to hear.
At noon, Jim walked out of the woods from his deer stand, to the road where Kris was to pick him up. He walked around kicking stones as he waited patiently, not ever thinking that some terrible thing could have happened. About 12:30, Jim heard a gun shoot, in the direction of Kris's stand. Kris had been able to reach her gun and fire a shot. Jim thought she had shot a deer and was tracking it. He thought she would come for him as soon as she had the deer located. He decided to walk down the road in the direction of Kris's stand. He kept hearing a strange muffled sound, but thought nothing of it since there was a quarry not far away, and they could often hear sounds from there. As he walked on down the road, the sound became a little clearer. He stopped and listened. The sound was like someone in trouble. He was suddenly struck with fear and started running toward Kris's deer stand.Jim found Kris about 2:30, on the ground in her stand seat, lying on her back. It had been about seven hours since she fell, and was still lightly raining. At Kris's suggestion, Jim propped something under her head to relax her neck, and around her legs to keep the knees in a bent position. He took a tarp out of the truck, spreading it over her and over some bushes that were around her, to protect her from any more rain. Then he drove the truck down the road a short distance to a house, to call for an ambulance.
In about fifteen minutes, a sheriff's deputy, an ambulance, and a fire truck were there and had her stabilized for transport to the nearest hospital.
Kris's injuries consisted of a shattered vertebra, a broken breastbone, two broken ribs, and one broken finger, held on by a small piece of skin.
At the hospital, the finger was immediately simply stitched on and bandaged. Kris was in ICU and was kept very heavily sedated and securely fastened to a moveable bed. The back surgery was done on October 27th, to clear out all the tiny shattered bone fragments, and two metal rods put against each side of the spine from L1 to L5, with four screws in each side. The surgery was done on her finger November 1st, to attach everything in place so that she might hopefully get some movement back in it.
November 10th, Kris was transported by ambulance to the Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Her diagnosis was: paralyzed from the waist down, with some feeling and motion in the muscle in each front thigh. At the Shepherd Center, Kris had therapy and learned many, many things about how to manage with her completely new life.
November 11, l999 - the day after arrival at Shepherd Center - first time in a wheelchair.
Note: the body brace, the seat belt to hold her in the chair, and her bandaged finger.Kris is a very tough and determined person, never to let anything get the best of her. She had to learn how to sit up, how to roll over(that's not funny),and how to dress herself. She had to exercise to build strength in her neck, arms, shoulders, chest and upper back. She had to learn how to be able to take baths, and to care for her skin. She had to learn what foods to eat and what to drink. The diet is extremely important for people who are paralyzed. There is loss of bladder and bowel, so a different procedure has to be learned, and the diet has everything to do with the ability to be able to perform.
She had to learn how to get in and out of a wheelchair, and how to operate it. She had to learn how to open doors from her wheelchair. She had to learn to do weight-shifts, to keep the blood flowing, when having to sit for long periods of time, another very important thing.
Working out in the weight room at the Shepherd Center January 1, 2000, Kris was released from the Shepherd Spinal Center to go home. She continued to go to the Center twice a week as an outpatient, for therapy. Some of her therapy was in the swimming pool.
Kris and her Mom swimming in the pool at Shepherd Center She also was able to learn to walk some, with full braces on her legs (braces locked at the knees), and using a full size walker to hold and lean her arms on, with help getting up from and help getting back down into her chair.
December 31, l999 - 2nd day on braces - walked 3 times back and forth on parallel bars, then tried with a walker
Learning to walk up and down a ramp.
Learning to walk on grass. Kris's daily exercise helps her to get muscle tone and repair. She accepts the wheelchair as part of her everyday life, and she goes right on with life, insisting on doing her own cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, sewing, and shopping. She must lie down two or three times during the day. She goes to church, and she writes and calls, keeping in touch with a lot of the patients that she meets at the Shepherd Center.
Kris cleaning her kitchen floor. I know Kris has times that she feels very sad and depressed, but she hides that from the world. She always appears to be happy and cheerful, and uplifts everybody's spirits. She stays busy all the time figuring out how to solve problems for everybody else as well as her own. She's a whiz at working things out.
