Woman, 21, injured in icy Utah crash coming home to heal

By Jean Reid Norman

Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009 | 1:59 a.m.

After more than four months in hospitals, after three stents in major arteries, after more than two months on a ventilator, Brianne Perkins is ready to come home.

Perkins, 21, has been fighting for her health since an April 11 car crash on Interstate 70 nearly took her life. She and her fiance, Eric Nay, had been driving in a storm from Southern Utah University, where they attended school, to Richfield, Utah, to visit her grandfather when they stopped to help an elderly couple that had crashed.

An SUV slid on the ice and struck Brianne, breaking five vertebrae in her neck, fracturing her back and leaving her with internal injuries. She spent a month at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, Utah, before moving to Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo., for rehabilitation.

She and her mother, Ruby, who has been at her side since the crash, will return to Boulder City on Saturday, and the family is holding an open house from 4 to 7 p.m, Sunday so friends can come visit.

“I’m doing 100 percent better from where I’ve been,” Perkins said. “I’ve been making really good progress to get to where I am.”

Where she is, Ruby Perkins said, is still paralyzed from her shoulders down. The internal injuries have largely been resolved. Stents in three of her four major arteries have reduced the danger of a stroke, her mother said, and her liver, which was severely injured, has healed.

And most significantly, for now, is she no longer needs a ventilator to breathe, her mother said.

“That was a major, major thing,” Ruby Perkins said. “They pretty much told us she would not be off the ventilator; that was something that would not happen. We proved them wrong on that.

“That’s what we figure we’ll keep doing is proving them wrong.”

Brianne Perkins also has had the halo that held her neck in place removed, and her mother has become adept at moving her in and out of a car so they can get around.

Nay and sister Tessie Perkins, who had remained with Brianne since April, returned to school recently — Nay to Brigham Young University for a master’s degree in business and Tessie Perkins to UNLV to complete her bachelor’s in communications.

Nay and Brianne Perkins were to be married June 18, then attend law school together at Gonzaga this fall. The school has agreed to hold both admission and the financial awards they had earned, and they will attend when she recovers, her mother said.

Once home, Brianne Perkins will continue on that road to recovery, her mother said. Physical therapy equipment, including a therapy pool, have been installed in the Perkins home, and she will supplement that work with outpatient trips to a physical therapist in Las Vegas, Ruby Perkins said.

Doctors have told the family that the damage did not seem to be permanent, and she could recover completely. Mobility can be regained anytime within two years of injury, they have been told.

“So we’ll get home and start hitting it,” Ruby Perkins said.

Once they’ve settled in, Ruby Perkins plans to return to her job as a Boulder City Police Department dispatcher, where fellow employees have been donating leave to cover her absence.

“That was a huge financial and mental relief,” she said.

Brianne Perkins said the family has been overwhelmed and grateful for the community support they have received.

“I don’t know how we would have done it,” she said.

Now, she is just looking forward to being home.

“Getting to see everyone and to be around familiar people again will be nice,” she said. “And real food — I’m very excited for that.”