Split-second changes
Look outside and tell me God's not painting.
A therapist I am friends with called me at work. She asked me what I thought about doing a story on a girl she'd been meeting with. The girl's circumstances were heartbreaking and dramatic, and she'd expressed interest in doing a story of some kind for possible closure.
The story wrote itself, essentially one big quote. Newspapers around the state and nation picked it up, even MSNBC. In the days that followed, I received numerous phone calls, e-mails and physical approaches from people who were either touched or angered by the story.
It still feels incomplete to me, but I think it's a good start. Published in the Thanksgiving 2010 edition of the Herald and News in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Rose Williams didn’t cry until the train passed, until she saw her mangled hand and crushed leg. There wasn’t enough time to think about dying.She just watched as the iron wheels rolled over her, taking pieces of her with them. Her boyfriend Tyler Allen stood helpless a few yards away.
“I just pretty much had to wait until the train passed over me,” Williams said. When it did, the tears fell.
Williams was 16 when she decided to run away with her boyfriend. The attempt failed after she fell in the train yard and slipped under the passing train.
The tragedy two years ago changed her life.
Now 18, Williams’ right hand is gone, her leg replaced with a prosthetic. Despite the physical challenges, her outlook today is more positive than it was two years ago. She is hopeful and excited about the future.
“It’s amazing how something like that can totally change a person,” she said.
Family problems led to Williams’ decision to run away. She wouldn’t go into detail and family members would not comment, but she said she had reached her boiling point.
“I just couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “Pretty much just had to get out of town.”
She concocted a simple plan: hop a train with Allen and never look back.
She got a ride to the train yard after school that day. It was 5:30 p.m., April 1, 2008. Shadows crept across the tracks as the sun descended. The air temperature dropped.
Then a Union Pacific train came through the yard. Williams saw her chance.
But when she tried to get on, she fell. After a futile attempt to escape, she watched the metal wheels slam into her hand. She watched pieces of her flesh fly off.
“It just happened instantly,” Allen said.
He called 911.
Williams’ uncle was one of the responding paramedics.
“He didn’t even realize it was me,” Williams said. “The face he gave was just total shock.”
Paramedics loaded her into the ambulance and raced to Sky Lakes Medical Center. On the way, she recalls asking if she would live. Paramedics were straight with her: it didn’t look good.
One thought occupied her mind.
“I just kept thinking of my family, how much I love them,” Williams said.
In the hospital, she answered round after round of questions from doctors and nurses.
Her cousin arrived and held her remaining hand. Her mother arrived. Family members and friends visited.
Williams thought about her favorite two-mile running loop that she often ran in the evenings. Running had been a hobby and stress reliever for some time.
“I remember thinking I’d never be able to run, that that was my last time,” she said.
Williams slept.
She woke up alone with a tube in her throat. She yanked it out. Her leg had been amputated at the knee. She saw it later when a doctor lifted the sheet back and put a book where her leg had been.
“I didn’t really think. I just kind of laid there,” she said.
In the 25 days that followed, Williams had five more surgeries that removed more of her leg due to spreading infection.
Phantom pains, perceived spasms and aches in limbs that have been removed, assaulted her.
“It literally felt like someone was taking my ankle and rotating it a whole bunch of times,” Williams said.
Those with two working legs — passersby in the hallway, doctors and nurses that came to check on her progress — upset her. “It took me a while to get over,” she said.
Allen couldn’t stop thinking about Williams. He couldn’t focus at school. He didn’t feel right anywhere else, he said.
“He was lost,” said Jamie Butler, Allen’s aunt.
He spent as much time as he could at Williams’ bedside, encouraging her and holding her hand.
He told her she was beautiful.
After 25 days, Williams was able to return home, a relief. She missed her family. She missed her dog.
But her accident changed her, and she grieved for what she had before. So she started counseling and physical therapy, learning to walk on her prosthesis.
She attended graduation at Henley High School in June to watch her friends, though she didn’t graduate.
Today, Williams lives at home with her mother. She’s happy.
“I can’t remember the last time I said I hate this new life,” she said.
The story wrote itself, essentially one big quote. Newspapers around the state and nation picked it up, even MSNBC. In the days that followed, I received numerous phone calls, e-mails and physical approaches from people who were either touched or angered by the story.
It still feels incomplete to me, but I think it's a good start. Published in the Thanksgiving 2010 edition of the Herald and News in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Rose Williams didn’t cry until the train passed, until she saw her mangled hand and crushed leg. There wasn’t enough time to think about dying.She just watched as the iron wheels rolled over her, taking pieces of her with them. Her boyfriend Tyler Allen stood helpless a few yards away.
“I just pretty much had to wait until the train passed over me,” Williams said. When it did, the tears fell.
Williams was 16 when she decided to run away with her boyfriend. The attempt failed after she fell in the train yard and slipped under the passing train.
The tragedy two years ago changed her life.
Now 18, Williams’ right hand is gone, her leg replaced with a prosthetic. Despite the physical challenges, her outlook today is more positive than it was two years ago. She is hopeful and excited about the future.
“It’s amazing how something like that can totally change a person,” she said.
Family problems led to Williams’ decision to run away. She wouldn’t go into detail and family members would not comment, but she said she had reached her boiling point.
“I just couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “Pretty much just had to get out of town.”
She concocted a simple plan: hop a train with Allen and never look back.
She got a ride to the train yard after school that day. It was 5:30 p.m., April 1, 2008. Shadows crept across the tracks as the sun descended. The air temperature dropped.
Then a Union Pacific train came through the yard. Williams saw her chance.
But when she tried to get on, she fell. After a futile attempt to escape, she watched the metal wheels slam into her hand. She watched pieces of her flesh fly off.
“It just happened instantly,” Allen said.
He called 911.
Williams’ uncle was one of the responding paramedics.
“He didn’t even realize it was me,” Williams said. “The face he gave was just total shock.”
Paramedics loaded her into the ambulance and raced to Sky Lakes Medical Center. On the way, she recalls asking if she would live. Paramedics were straight with her: it didn’t look good.
One thought occupied her mind.
“I just kept thinking of my family, how much I love them,” Williams said.
In the hospital, she answered round after round of questions from doctors and nurses.
Her cousin arrived and held her remaining hand. Her mother arrived. Family members and friends visited.
Williams thought about her favorite two-mile running loop that she often ran in the evenings. Running had been a hobby and stress reliever for some time.
“I remember thinking I’d never be able to run, that that was my last time,” she said.
Williams slept.
She woke up alone with a tube in her throat. She yanked it out. Her leg had been amputated at the knee. She saw it later when a doctor lifted the sheet back and put a book where her leg had been.
“I didn’t really think. I just kind of laid there,” she said.
In the 25 days that followed, Williams had five more surgeries that removed more of her leg due to spreading infection.
Phantom pains, perceived spasms and aches in limbs that have been removed, assaulted her.
“It literally felt like someone was taking my ankle and rotating it a whole bunch of times,” Williams said.
Those with two working legs — passersby in the hallway, doctors and nurses that came to check on her progress — upset her. “It took me a while to get over,” she said.
Allen couldn’t stop thinking about Williams. He couldn’t focus at school. He didn’t feel right anywhere else, he said.
“He was lost,” said Jamie Butler, Allen’s aunt.
He spent as much time as he could at Williams’ bedside, encouraging her and holding her hand.
He told her she was beautiful.
After 25 days, Williams was able to return home, a relief. She missed her family. She missed her dog.
But her accident changed her, and she grieved for what she had before. So she started counseling and physical therapy, learning to walk on her prosthesis.
She attended graduation at Henley High School in June to watch her friends, though she didn’t graduate.
Today, Williams lives at home with her mother. She’s happy.
“I can’t remember the last time I said I hate this new life,” she said.
