Novie was injured on December 25, 2002. Uh huh, “Merry fucking Christmas,” as she likes to say. She made a mistake and got into a car with someone who had been drinking. Her judgment was not good. She had been drinking also.

They were out in the country of southern Oregon and it was cold. Her boyfriend, (ex-boyfriend) was driving recklessly. He was in a rage over a fight at a party. He lost control in some gravel on a downhill portion of a rural back road, slid into a small ditch, and the car rolled over. She cannot remember how many times.

The car landed upright. Her legs were draped over the front seat and her upper body was in the back seat. She had not been wearing a seat belt.

The boyfriend was not thinking clearly due to shock and perhaps a concussion, not to mention the drinking. Whatever, he managed to start the car and drove back onto the roadway before the engine died for good. The car windows were busted out and the temperature was below freezing. There’s no cell phone, no town nearby, no houses nearby, and it’s about three in the morning.

Novie told her boyfriend she could not move her legs. He lifted her out of the car and ran down the road until falling from a combination of exhaustion and panic and drunkenness. Upon regaining his strength he carried Novie back to the car and placed her in the back seat. He then set off on foot to find help, leaving her alone in the car.

The police report says officer Melvin Ray arrived at the accident scene at 04:15 hours. This is rural Oregon; the boonies. It took the Sheriff’s Deputy 39 minutes from dispatch to arrival.

His investigation states that where the boyfriend’s car went off the road there is a ditch 3 feet deep by 6 feet wide. The weather was cloudy, cold with intermittent snow showers. An abundance of loose gravel lay strewn throughout the roadway.

His opinions and conclusions state that the vehicle, traveling at approximately 50 miles an hour, slid in the gravel clockwise and struck an embankment, became airborne and flipped and rolled at least one time. The vehicle landed upright on all four wheels and was driven out of the ditch.

Measurements indicate that the car slid in the gravel for 140 feet before striking the embankment and coming to rest 106 feet further down the hill.

The officer states that the driver had a faint smell of...

Ahem, I hate to leave Novie alone in that vehicle with a cold winter wind whistling through the broken windows. But until I can find a publisher for these stories, this will have to suffice. Please check out the excerpts from other interviews along with commentaries I’ve written about living the paralyzed life.

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