Erin Woodsmall, a lifeguard at the Jackson county recreation center and an active member of the sapphic author community, was involved in a head on auto collision when a truck recklessly took a turn into her lane. At 6am on 11/07/25 she was rushed to Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC with fractures to her neck, spine, pelvis, a dislocated fractured wrist, a compound break to her femur, internal bleeding, and multiple lacerations. She is undergoing multiple operations and is improving in ICU. Her wife, Ev, is staying with her during this traumatic time to take care of her full time.

Current expectations are she won’t be home for at least a month as she enters intensive inpatient physical therapy to be able to walk again. The doctors have stated it will be at least three months until her leg will bear weight.

While insurance will hopefully cover the medical side, both Erin and her caretaker wife will have lost wages and need help with the basic costs like food and gas that come from living at the hospital.

We need help. It’s going to be a hard year filled with physical therapy. We live a hour from Asheville and local medical care is sparse to nonexistent in our rural area. Complications could arise due to the sheer amount of damage to Erin’s body. It’s a blessing she survived, and we know she’ll fight to be strong again. Family and friends have already stepped in to help with her children and our pets while we are at the ICU. We are asking for financial help to get us through until we can both work again.

EDIT: Update: Day 18 – from Erin

I’m wrapping up my stay at CarePartners, the inpatient rehab center Ev and I have been at since Thursday. Supposedly, we get to go home tomorrow to the next stage of this journey. Everything has been such a blur, it’s hard to reflect on this whole experience, but I’m going to try.

It would be easy to get bogged down in loss, and often I do, despite my best efforts to stay positive and maintain the immediate thankfulness I felt to be alive after the accident. Not a day has passed where I haven’t wept with the grief of it all. The most striking loss is loss of my body. My previously limber and flexible right leg feels like it’s made of stone, impossibly heavy to lift and bend. I’ve lost comfortable movement in general in the near future, as my injuries were extensive and numerous and I must wear uncomfortable neck and body braces that prevent twisting. I’ll likely lose my job in February when my ADA disability leave runs out due to the long length of my recovery time. I missed my daughter turning 14 today and my youngest son’s 7th birthday party two weeks ago. Two of my kids had first basketball games during the time I was hospitalized. I won’t be able to finish the pottery pieces I wanted to make my loved ones for Christmas. I won’t be able to train our puppy, Lyra, in the next few months during her crucial developmental time. I won’t walk through the woods on a winter day this year. Anyone who has been hospitalized for a length of time knows the inevitable loss of dignity that happens. And finally, something big I’m still grappling with, the loss of my identity. I’ve always been the one who wants to carry the heavy stuff, the one who volunteers to drive, the one who takes such pleasure in physical activity such as running, swimming, martial arts, and more. I don’t quite know what my next steps are and what that means for me this year.

But there’s also hope. When I was in the midst of back-to-back surgeries, drugged up on ketamine for pain, and unable to move at all, Ev told me that our author friend Milena was helping organize a GoFundMe and an auction to benefit us during this time. I felt a little spark of hope that people cared that much and wanted to help Ev and myself, who I would consider small indie authors, out. Then the messages started coming in. So many people wrote encouraging words to us: fellow authors, readers, artists, pool patrons, neighbors from Cullowhee, Sylva, and Asheville, relatives, relatives’ relatives, contacts I haven’t heard from in ages, and more, and more, and more. Once, Ev walked into a coffee shop here in Asheville looking upset, and the owner recognized her based on this online campaign to support us.

The way the sapphic book community mobilizes to support each other is unmatched. Not only did people generously donate unique items such as annotated special editions, editing or marketing services, and rare books, the bidders and givers stepped up. Not a single item was left without a bid. When I read over the final list, my jaw dropped. And, something that truly brought me joy, people had fun while doing it. It’s such a win for us all.

My aunt visited me right after the hospital moved me from ICU to Trauma Step-down and gifted me an amaryllis bud, planted in rocks and dirt. Every day that bud has come closer and closer to blooming. I think tomorrow it finally will. Seems fitting it’s the day we get to return to our beloved home. Sometimes healing and growth takes time, and I’m going to be learning that lesson in a new way.

To anyone reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart for caring. Thank you for keeping myself and Ev in your thoughts. Thank you for the well-wishes, the encouragement, and the love. Thank you to all the generous people, near and far, who have donated and supported us. Thanks to you, I get to focus on healing, and Ev gets to focus on my care rather than constant financial stress. That freedom to breathe and heal is a gift I will never take for granted, and all I can do is pay it forward with the rest of my life.