Supporting Nicole's Road to recovery.

On April 13th, Nicole was in a traumatic vehicle accident in Riggins, Idaho. Quite bluntly, she is extremely lucky to be alive and progressing as well as she is. The photos will explain the gravity of this accident.

Not only was she involved in the car accident, but she also slept on the side of the mountain for several hours, in the dark, with freezing temperatures, before she was found the morning of the 14th. While sharing some of her accounts with me, I realized just how tough this little lady truly is! After the incident, she attempted to get out of the car, searching for her phone to call for help and slid down the hillside, unable to get back into the car due to the steepness of the hillside and her injuries, unbeknownst to her. While she sat in the elements, she can remember hearing a pack of Coyotes across the river, chirping, and thinking, please do not cross the river…she was in no place to defend herself. After a cold night, with no shelter or water, someone found her!

She was rescued on the morning of the 14th by a local towns’ woman, who happened to see the tire marks and the busted road barrier. This savior stayed with Nicole for 2 hours prior to EMS arriving on scene. The hillside was so steep, EMS was unable to bring her back up the mountain, so she ended up taking a jet boat ride. They were able to load Nicole on this jet boat, transporting her on the Salmon river, to an ambulance, then to a helicopter where she was flown to St Joseph’s Hospital in Lewiston. Once she was stable, she was then Life Flighted, in another helicopter, to St Alphonsus in Boise, where she spent 6 days on the neuro surgical floor.

Nicole has extensive injuries, causing this VERY independent woman, to rely on others. I can only imagine how difficult this alone would be. She sustained a broken right clavicle, fractured T8, multiple rib fractures, a collapsed lung, left femoral head fracture and a left fractured pelvis, among other minor injuries. I’m sure many of you already know, she has been healing from bilateral femur surgeries this past year and has steel rods in both femurs. The rod in her left femur jammed up into her pelvis, causing a lot of damage. She underwent her 4th surgery, in less than a year on her left femur after this accident. She was set to return to work the following week, and now, she has a long road to recovery ahead of her.

As you can imagine, after all the extensive injuries she sustained and the multiple emergent services she had to utilize, things can add up very quickly. If you can donate any amount of funds, or aren’t in a place to help monetarily, sharing Nicole’s story with family/friends/coworkers, will help Nicole in BIG ways.