From: Riding at Fairhunt... for love, life and therapy by Susan Skolnick-Lozano

Part 3 Riding for Therapy

The accident- October 22, 2003



…So now began our long journey as a family. My husband, Carlos, and I had always felt fortunate that all our children were – well – alive. My mother died when I was in my 20's and my brother died after that. Life is to be cherished. Of our 7 children, Rebekah is number six, and I soon learned what ‘critical’ meant…

…[Rebekah] was airlifted to University of Virginia Hospital by Pegasus. The flying horse, strangely appropriate. The crew of Pegasus and the wonderful Scottsville Rescue Team who passed me on Route 6, were volunteers who in their dedication, saved Rebekah’s life. She had gone off the road near where Route 20 crosses the James River. It was apparently a situation of going onto the shoulder, and then losing control after an over-correction and going down a 40 foot embankment. I did not know this until 2 days later, when I was at Rebekah’s bedside and a nurse was explaining this to another professional. The contents of her car were so scattered on the hillside that I did not think all that had come from one car. One of my sons found her riding chaps but not much else was salvageable….

…We knew we needed to think positive; no one said anything to the opposite but we were terrified. Too terrified to think of the worst. My husband had one small moment when he broke. We were in the hallway, sitting on the window ledges, and on the carpeted floor; close to each other and subdued. It was well after midnight…

We wanted life. Carlos wanted everyone to believe that it could happen. He put it simply, “We are going to take home what is left of Rebekah....” He cried just for a moment. We all did, but my son (also named Carlos) expressed our optimism well when he was quickly deciding what to pack to come from California. Funeral clothes or beach clothes. He really was setting a ‘mind place’...funeral or beach. Again, thinking makes it so and we were very extreme in our positive thinking...

... I would look where I wanted to go and believe what I wanted to see. In my mind, I saw Rebekah as a whole person. It was going to take years, but I saw it. I still do. A ‘lifetime of recovery’ as her nurse put it. And it is 4 years now, but she still improves. Thinking makes it so and she now also is cognitively able to feel that and try for those goals she sets for herself.