Positivity: 17 Year-Old in Amazing Recovery from Car Accident
No it’s not a complete recovery, but a remarkable one that has gone from a 1% chance to live, and could yet become complete (e-mail me if you know the URL of Rita Ronchi’s web site):
Monday, July 24, 2006
Student athlete amazes family, friends in recovery from car accident
When Myrna Ronchi saw her daughter, Rita, smile for the first time since her near-fatal June 4 car accident, it was a moment of great hope.
Telling the story caused tears to well up in her eyes, as she tried to explain seeing Rita do things for the first time, again.
“To see your 17-year-old daughter that you appreciate and love so much and are so proud of . . . do something that she first did when she was a baby all over again — it’s the most unexplainable experience that you would never understand when they did it the first time,” she said. “It is incredible to have the second chance to see your child do these things.”
The Maple teen was severely injured in a head-on collision on U.S. Highway 2 in Wentworth, Wis. Rita’s right leg had to be amputated above the knee, she suffered brain damage and collapsed lungs and sustained several other injuries to extremities. The night of the accident, her family was told she had a 1 percent chance of survival.
Rita spent a month in the intensive care unit at St. Luke’s hospital and is going through rehabilitation at Miller Dwan Medical Center. The multisport athlete has made progress that’s impressive even to her therapists and doctors, Myrna said.
“When she first came in, she was not expected to live,” she said. “We were told she had no attainable blood pressure and no attainable pulse in the helicopter “go up,” said Dinah Johnson, Rita’s aunt.
Brain damage was caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain, but the extent is not yet known.
“But it’s two weeks postrehab and she’s speaking softly and playing solitaire,” Johnson said.
Rita’s left side is weaker than her right, but she is able to use a remote control with her right hand, clutch cups and feed herself ice chips. She has performed simple math problems and said all of the names of her friends. Her tracheotomy tube has been removed, and she’s beginning to whisper and mouth words, saying things like “Hi, Mom” and “Thank You.”
“She’s incredibly gracious with everyone for a person with a head injury,”Myrna said. A person that didn’t have emotions going on wouldn’t know to say thank you.”
Rita appears to have longterm memory, but because of her coma, her short-term memory seems to have lapsed.
She’s learning to swallow again, and Myrna is amazed at the process for such a simple task.
“We don’t think about learning to swallow, smile or laugh,” she said. “We try to say we’re thankful (for what we have) but nobody knows until they’ve lived it.”
Rita’s family and friends credit her physical and emotional strength for her impressive progress.
“She was - at the time of her accident - in the most incredible physical shape she’s ever been in,” her mom said.
Rita, a junior at Northwestern High School last year, played volleyball, basketball and softball, and trained with weights.
This month, she was to participate in a prestigious volleyball tournament in Hawaii. Her volleyball coach, Charlie Hessel, nominated Rita for the honor.
“She’s so tough,” Hessel said. “She’s probably one of the hardest workers I’ve ever had the chance to coach. She’s a competitive person . . . and that drive will help her recover as best she can.”
An accomplished pianist with a passion for singing, she was in the process of making a CD for her father, Bill Ronchi, for Father’s Day. She planned to major in education in college and become a teacher.
Her family isn’t ruling that out, and believes Rita is still alive for a reason. Myrna described hearing stories of disabled people who accomplish the extraordinary.
….. Rita has a fan club dedicated to her Web site that charts her progress. It has received more than 86,000 views since June 5 from as far off as Norway.
And because her family has spent so much time at the hospital, community members have pitched in to mow Myrna’s lawn, retrieve mail, cook meals and water plants.
“You know you have friends . . . but you don’t realize the true outpouring,” she said. “I’m so grateful.”
Family members acknowledge that life for Rita and those around her will be different, but they remain positive.
“I wake up with new hope every day,” her mother said.
Rita’s friends wear homemade bracelets that display her name with the phrases “hope” and “believe” attached.
….. Erin Malinoski, a friend to Rita since preschool, is upbeat about her future, and plans to help her through every step of recovery.
“It was hard at first, but I knew she was going to make it,” she said. “I had a gut feeling she was going to live.”
While she is recovering at a quicker pace than anticipated, it’s still too early to tell when she will leave the hospital, what kind of assistance she will need and when she will get a prosthetic leg. A psychologist recently told Myrna that her daughter’s prognosis looks very good.
Myrna said the year will be a difficult one for Rita, but it’s exciting to think of the possibilities, she said. “What she has survived is beyond a miracle.”
This week, Myrna was sitting with Rita on her bed when she began mouthing something to her. Myrna couldn’t understand what her daughter was saying after several attempts, so she brought out paper and a pen. Rita wrote “nothing,” out of what appeared to be exasperation, Myrna said.
“I started laughing, and then Rita started laughing! It was just incredible,” she said. “She does something new every day.”
