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Injury Prevention for Three- to Four-Year-Olds: At Home

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A Remarkable Recovery

When a bike crash put this editor in a coma, doctors said she might never walk or talk again. They didn't know whom they were dealing with.

LAUREL NAVERSEN GERAGHTY. From the moment we met, in February 2001, Gabby and I couldn't help but be friends. We lived in the same New York City neighborhood, worked for magazines (Gabby was SELF's fitness editor) and were huge sports geeks. We bonded over distance runs in Central Park, lap swims at our local pool and countless trips to Starbucks, where we talked about boyfriends, cool gear and which race we wanted to enter next.

By May 2002, Gabby and I were training for our first triathlon. On the 19th, we set off upstate with two friends for one of our last long bike rides before the event. After 20 miles, we cruised down a hill and around a corner into an intersection, when Gabby lost control. She veered into a parking lot to try to slow down, and her bike slammed into a wooden planter, sending her headfirst into a two-by-four jutting from its center. When I got there seconds later, she was lying motionless, her body twisted over the planter, her helmet still strapped in place. She was unconscious, and blood trickled from her ears and mouth. One of our friends called 911 while I tried to hold myself together, touching Gabby's leg and telling her that she was going to be all right.

When the ambulance arrived, I called Gabby's boyfriend, Wayne, and asked him to meet us at Nyack Hospital. There, as Gabby was wheeled away to be examined, a man in scrubs (a doctor? a nurse?) told me she was in a coma and had suffered a serious head trauma. "I have to be honest that she may not make it, and even if she does, well...it is very serious," he said. Bones in her left arm were also shattered. I was in shock. How could one of my best friends—the fittest, strongest person I knew—be fighting for her life?

Daniel E. Spitzer, M.D., who became Gabby's neurosurgeon, explained to us a couple of hours later that she had suffered a diffuse brain injury. "It's not that any one specific region of the brain is damaged—they're almost all damaged," he said. If she woke up at all, the physicians agreed, there was a good chance she'd stay in a vegetative state.

Thankfully, Gabby did manage to wake up, three weeks later.

GABRIELLE STUDENMUND. My memory has been pretty patchy ever since the crash. I don't remember anything about the accident itself, or coming out of the coma, but I can say that it's nothing like waking from a nap, like you might see on television. It can take months before you feel alert, and how "awake" you are varies daily.

I was soon transferred to Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia. When I arrived, I couldn't walk, talk or eat on my own. Because of my brain injury, I'd lost some ability to maintain posture, along with muscle strength, and had to be strapped to my bed and wheelchair so I wouldn't fall out. My progress was slow and painful, but about a month into my rehab, my family gave me markers and paper and I scrawled, "I am the fitness editor at SELF" and "I want a big chocolate milkshake." Everyone was thrilled! It was proof that my verbal abilities were intact somewhere inside me. After three months, I was able to whisper a couple of words at a time. I eventually regained motion in my left arm and was taking a few small, wobbly steps.

The doctors decided a few weeks later that I could go to North Carolina to live with my parents. That Thanksgiving, after more therapy, I pleaded with my dad to take me running on the beach. After all that time in a wheelchair, the marathoner in me just wanted to move again. We jogged very slowly and I clung to him a lot, but we did about a mile. Nothing makes me feel more like myself again like reaching a new fitness goal.

LAUREL. That run was so important to Gabby. Considering that she almost died, every skill she relearned was a huge victory. But her memory problems were severe and continue to be a struggle. At first, Gabby could remember her life only through college. When she woke from the coma at 26, she thought she was still 22! Everything that had happened since was almost erased. Her doctors say that's probably because diffuse injuries like hers affect the brain's learning center and newest memories most.

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