Part 2: Shattered family waits for a comforting voice

PART TWO OF THREE

The van looked even worse than she remembered it.

The last time Brandi Coulter had seen her family’s minivan, it was upside-down in the wreckage of the Interstate 35W bridge. Now, at a salvage yard three weeks later, she was stunned by its appearance.

The roof was partly caved in, the front and back ends were smashed, the windows were shattered and a door had been torn off.

Is this your van? one of the salvage workers asked. You actually made it out?

Brandi, 17, was thinking the same thing.

She and her father, Brad, and her older sister, Brianna, stared in disbelief. They had come to the salvage yard in Ham Lake, picking gingerly through the wreckage in their stiff plastic back braces, because they wanted to see it for themselves.

They thought it might help them understand what had happened — why they had been able to crawl out of the wreck with a few broken bones, while, Paula, wife and mother, had nearly died.

Warily, Brandi peered into the van. She could see the front-seat airbags, now deflated, that had helped save her dad and sister.

Looking in the back seat was harder. She stared at the bloodstains that spattered the seats, the ceiling and the floor. She had been sitting right next to her mother when the van plunged off the bridge. This was where they had found her, unconscious, hanging upside-down by her seat belt.

The sisters scanned the cabin from top to bottom. On the floor, they found Brandi’s warm-up suit, and their mom’s shoes and glasses.

Then they noticed the U-shaped hand-rest above Paula’s door. They called their dad over. It was covered with strands of Paula’s long blonde hair, entangled in blood.

Maybe this was the spot where their heartache had begun.

• • •

At night, Brandi lay awake, thinking about her mother.

She wasn’t haunted by images of the bridge collapsing, or of the minivan plunging to the ground. But she could not get her mind off her mother lying in the intensive care unit, hooked up to machines — to help her breathe, control her pain, and keep her alive.

She worried about the thunderstorms that rumbled through, night after night. What if the power went out? What if the machines fell silent?

Brandi’s life had seemed so carefree up until now. With a month to go before school started, she had expected to be hanging out with friends and playing soccer with her sister in their summer league. Her parents would be cheering on the sidelines, like always. And in the evenings, if she didn’t have other plans, she might come home and cook dinner with her mom.

Instead, she and her father and sister got up each day, strapped on their back braces, and waited for someone to drive them to Hennepin County Medical Center. They spent tedious and anxious hours there, every day, hoping and praying that her mother would show some signs of life.

The whole family knew that Paula was a strong woman. She had grown up headstrong and outgoing on a dairy farm in Fairmont, Minn., with five brothers and sisters. She had beaten thyroid cancer years ago, when her daughters were still small. Then she became ferocious about her health; running four times a week, taking vitamins and shunning junk food.

Brandi could hardly remember the last time her mother had been sick. She was always the healthy one, taking care of the rest of the family.

Now, no one knew if she would even be able to recognize them again.

As the school year approached, nothing was turning out the way that the Coulters had expected. Brianna, who was supposed to start college, couldn’t face leaving home, and asked Winona State University to defer her soccer scholarship for a year. Her father understood but insisted that she couldn’t put her life on hold. So she enrolled, instead, at Normandale Community College, and watched her friends scatter for their freshman year.

Brandi, meanwhile, had had big plans for her senior year — as an athlete and an honor student, among other things. She had hoped to shine on the soccer field and win a scholarship, like Brianna.

But now everything took on a new cast in the aftermath of the bridge.

When she gathered with her Christian youth group, they prayed for her family. At soccer games, she could only watch from the bench, stiff and sweating in her hot plastic body brace. Everyone in school knew what had happened to the Coulter family. Friends kept coming up to her and saying, What was it like? I can’t believe it happened to you.

• • •

At first, doctors told the family that Paula had a good chance of recovery. But as time passed, they began to worry. Paula underwent two more surgeries, on her head and her back. Four weeks after the accident, they thought she should be showing more signs of life.

Instead, her responses were infrequent and inconsistent. One day, she might show a glint of recognition in her eyes, a raised eyebrow, a hint of emotion. The next day, she’d stare at shadows, seemingly unaware that anyone else was in the room.

At the end of August, one of the doctors took the family aside for a frank talk. He had examined Paula, and he saw little reason to be encouraged. He knew it would be hard to hear, but he wanted to prepare them for the worst.

She may never walk again, he said. You should start looking for a nursing home.

Brad and the girls were devastated. Brandi broke down in tears.

That night was grim. She watched her normally even-keeled father struggle to hold himself together. I just want my wife back, he said.

Brandi couldn’t believe that all hope was gone. Hadn’t Paula wiggled her toes? Squeezed their hands? Told Brandi that she loved her in the chaos and dust and commotion of the bridge collapse?

The doctor just had to be wrong.

• • •

The first week in September, Brandi’s soccer team held a benefit for the Coulters at the first home game. A banner floated over the field, offering thoughts and prayers for the family. A bake sale was planned for halftime.

Brandi and her sister were watching from the bench when Brianna’s cell phone rang. Her sister flipped it open, and her eyes lit up.

Mom? Brianna gasped. It’s really you?

Brandi looked at her in disbelief. Is that Mom? Seriously?

They hadn’t heard her speak in over a month, since the day of the accident. Her voice was a hoarse, unfamiliar whisper.

Hi, Paula said. Where are you?

Brandi looked around at her teammates, and she shouted in excitement. My mom can talk!

For several days, there had been hints that Paula was starting to emerge from her month-long fog: A nod of the head, a little wave of the hand, a roll of the eyes. Sometimes she moved her mouth trying to form words, though no sound came out.

That morning, a nurse showed Paula how to plug an opening in her tracheotomy tube, which was helping her breathe. Suddenly, she had a voice.

Paula, show them what you can do, the nurse said, when her first visitors arrived.

I can talk, Paula said in triumph. And started calling everyone in the family.

Once she could speak, it was as though a shroud had been lifted. Over the coming days, she became increasingly alert and chatty.

Paula seemed to recognize everyone and remember things from before the crash. The family quizzed her: Who are the girls? What are their birthdays? Who’s the president?

Paula rarely missed an answer. Even her doctors were astonished. Now that the heavy sedation was wearing off, she seemed more and more like her old self.

She had no memory of the accident. In fact, the whole month of August was a blank. She was utterly astounded when her family told her about the bridge collapse.

The family repeated the story to her over and over, and each time she promptly forgot it — one of the lingering effects of her head injury was short-term memory loss. Sometimes she’d turn to visitors and say: Did you know I was in a bridge accident?

And she wondered what had happened to her long blonde hair.

Physically, Paula still was virtually helpless. After five weeks without moving in the ICU, she couldn’t even sit up in a chair without help.

The pain in her legs and hips made it excruciating to move.

As she began physical therapy, her legs felt like dead weight. She worried that she would be permanently in a wheelchair.

Her husband and daughters tried to reassure her.

You’ll walk again, they said.

Brandi was sure of it.

Even if no one else was.

Coming next: In a bittersweet moment, Paula Coulter is the last of the bridge victims to leave the hospital. But normalcy is still a long way off.

Maura Lerner • 612-673-7384