Information about the accident and her condition

On March 18th 2008 Tonia was driving down Main St. in Hyrum alone in her 1992 Jeep Wrangler. When she was faced with a wave of nausea, which has been a very common thing in Tonia's life lately. She tried to pull over to relieve her nausea when she lost control of her jeep which sent her off the road into a concrete curb that sent her out of control into 3rd East, which is a street that intersects Main Street in Hyrum. Then the jeep hit a second curb that blew her tire out and caused her jeep to roll through a fence and into the field on the corner of 3rd East and Main Street. According to an eye witness, the jeep rolled two or three times. There was so much force involved in the accident that it ripped a tire completely off the jeep and blew apart the transfer case.

The ambulance took her to Logan Hospital where they thought everything was going to be okay, until they received the X-Rays back to find she had broken her C3 and C4 vertebras in her neck. At this point she was flown by Life Flight to Intermountain Medical Center Hospital on 53rd South and State Street. The spinal doctor said she suffered from spinal cord damage which resulted in permanent paralysis from the top of her shoulders down. This also includes the inability to control her lungs to breathe and talk. There is a slight chance of improvement to control her breathing. That night they put a black halo on Tonia to help stabilize her neck from any movement to prevent further damage to the spinal cord. Tonia was taken from the emergency room up to a room in the shock and trauma ICU unit on the 5th floor of the hospital. Her family was let in to see her at 2:00a.m.

Wednesday afternoon the doctors took Tonia into surgery to put a filter in her main artery to prevent any life threatening blood clots. That same day, she was given a Priesthood blessing which was administered through her father. She had a surgery scheduled on Thursday to place two metal plates in both sides of her neck to permanently stabilize her neck and protect the spinal cord. However that next morning Tonia's lower right lung lobe had collapsed, so they put off the surgery until after they did a lungoscopy to clean out her lungs and pump that right lung back to where it should be. At 2:30pm on Thursday they wheeled Tonia into the 4 hour spinal surgery. The surgery went well. The doctors were able to take a piece of bone from Tonia's hip and along with other hardware and stabilize her neck and remove the halo. She is currently dependant on a respirator and often needs a lung treatment to clear her lung from the sticky mucus that causes it to collapse. There are plans to give her a tracheotomy sometime soon. She communicates with the aid of an alphabet chart by blinking and mouthing words. Of course the hardest part of this is Tonia is coherent a majority of the time. She understands what is happening to her body and can do nothing about it. Her eyes are filled with complete fright and sorrow mixed together. All of her children were able to visit with her on Saturday. Which seemed to be a good thing for all of them. Ryan our hearts go out to your sweet family and we all have a desire to help some how. For more information about spinal cord injuries you can visit this web-site: wingsforlife.com