Iowan fights back from brain injury to graduate college May 21, 2010

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By REID FORGRAVE • rforgrave@dmreg.com • May 21, 2010
Des Moines Register May 21, 2010

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Jan. 13, 2007: The day of the accident

Cathy Amfahr walked from the warmth of Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City into the blustery, cold air. The weather had deteriorated since morning, when Cathy and her husband, Bob, left Grundy Center for a University of Iowa men’s basketball game.

As soon as she got into their car, Cathy called their youngest daughter, Erika. The snow was only getting worse. Don’t come home, Cathy warned her daughter. The roads are awful.

But Erika was 20 years old and full of spunk, a junior at Simpson College, a volleyball star. And that night was a friend’s 21st birthday party near home. She couldn’t miss it. She’d be home in her 1990 Buick LaSabre just past dark, Erika reassured her mother.

Reluctantly, her parents agreed. When Cathy called later, Erika told her she was near home. Be careful, her mother said. Call when you’re home.

“She never called, and she never called,” Cathy said. “So I called her. She didn’t pick up. And you get that knot in your stomach.”

Finally, a voice answered.

“Is Erika there?” Cathy asked.

“She’s been in a car accident,” answered somebody in a Marshalltown emergency room.

Not long before, around 6:20 p.m., Grundy County Sheriff’s Deputy Ron Tordoff had pulled up to a car accident on Iowa Highway 14, near an S-curve less than 15 miles from Erika’s home.

It was a scene Tordoff would not soon forget: a mangled van and pickup truck in the road, and a third car in a ditch. The third car was a silver Buick LaSabre, and its front end was crushed like an accordion. The van had slid head-on into Erika’s car.

Freezing rain fell on the snow-covered road. Erika was clinging to life. A Life Flight helicopter was summoned, but weather prevented it from taking off, so an ambulance took Erika to Marshalltown, where she lay until her mother, clutching her rosary, walked in.

This is what Cathy Amfahr saw: Erika’s neck was in a brace. Her motionless body was covered by tubes, recognizable only by her curly blond hair. Doctors couldn’t yet tell the extent of the injury to the right side of her brain.

To Cathy, it felt like an awful dream. But she remembers thinking one thing: Her daughter was a fighter.

“You still go through that pain, what your daughter was, what your hope for her was,” Cathy said recently. “And what she is now. She is remarkable. You still have hope, and you have belief.”

Nov. 11, 2006: 63 days before the accident

A short story ran inside The Des Moines Register’s sports section:

“Simpson falls to Rhodes in semifinals of NCAA Central Region in St. Louis,” the headline read. “Third-seeded Rhodes College turned a 0-2 deficit into a 3-2 win Friday against second-seeded Simpson at the NCAA Central Region semifinals at St. Louis.”

The Simpson Storm had a great women’s volleyball team that year, and one of the big reasons was a lanky, 5-foot-9 player named Erika Amfahr.

Growing up in Grundy Center, Erika played every sport, but her favorite was volleyball. Her parents watched her in awe: “Come on, Spud!” they yelled. She’d been wrinkly as a baby, like a baked potato; her dad’s nickname for her stuck.

Spud was the most athletic of the family’s girls, making third team all-state her senior year for volleyball. Her powerful left-handed spike cleared out opponents and caught the eye of Simpson College coach Lana Smith. Smith saw a girl who jumped well, with a powerful arm swing and a quick wrist snap.

“She played with a lot of fire,” Smith said. “She worked very hard and brought her teammates with her, a great presence as a leader.”

Erika loved Simpson. She volunteered as an orientation leader, welcoming new students with her bright smile. Her volleyball teammates thought she needed a more grown-up nickname than Spud. They called her Tater Tot.

Her junior year, Erika developed into a star, third on the team in kills. In the first game against Rhodes in the NCAA tournament, Erika led a comeback with a spike to tie, then a block to win. But the girls lost three games in a row to Rhodes, conceding the match and ending their season.

But Erika’s future looked bright. Her coach thought Erika could be all-conference her senior year.

Nobody knew at the time, of course, but Erika had just played her final match.

Jan. 19, 2007: Six days after the accident

Erika’s mother sat next to her daughter’s bed at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines. Machines beeped incessantly.

The past six days had been a nightmare. Erika was in a coma with what doctors called a “diffuse axonal injury.” In its most severe form, 90 percent of victims of this type of brain injury remain unconscious; the 10 percent who wake up are significantly impaired. Doctors didn’t know the extent of Erika’s neurological function.

Sitting next to Erika, here’s what Cathy Amfahr saw: A ventilator breathing for her daughter’s bruised lungs. The lower half of Erika’s body was battered, with a fractured left leg and torn ligaments in her right ankle. Erika’s temperature swung wildly, as did her heart rate. Her body tremored.

“You were just praying she would be able to be functioning at some level that’s productive,” said Smith, her volleyball coach. “As every week went on and she still was unconscious, the concern just got greater and greater.”

Doctors told the family not to be discouraged. Over the next few weeks, Erika would show only small improvements: She would take breaths on her own, aided by the ventilator. Her eyes would flutter. She would be moved from the intensive care unit to the neurology unit. The progress would be slow, but the family needed to encourage their daughter and stay positive.

And so on this January day, like every day while her daughter was in the hospital, Cathy Amfahr pulled out a children’s book, a well-known story of optimism and hard work.

“A little steam engine had a long train of cars to pull,” Cathy began. “She went along very well till she came to a steep hill. But then, no matter how hard she tried, she could not move the long train of cars.”

Big steam engines wouldn’t help the little steam engine. But then another little steam engine said she’d help, and slowly they climbed the hill. They began to sing: “I-think-I-can! I-think-I-can! I-think-I-can!”

“And they did!” Cathy’s mother read.

June 2, 2007: 140 days after the accident

Erika’s parents wheeled her into their home in Grundy Center.

Since the accident, lots had happened: Erika had moved to a brain rehabilitation facility in Ankeny. Doctors said she was out of her coma. She had learned to lift her head, to swallow, to stand up, to talk, to walk. Her 21st birthday came and went. She remembered none of this.

What she did remember was this: For months, Erika had a vision of riding a school bus. The driver was God. He was old, with white hair and a long white church robe. God walked down the aisle but didn’t talk. It felt like the bus was floating. Erika was confused. She felt dead; she felt fine.

“I went to the driver and said, ‘God, can I go home?’ ” Erika recalled. “And He said, ‘Are you sure you want to?’ “

She was sure. She walked down the school bus stairs.

And there, around the time of her first weekend visit home, Erika’s memory began to wake up.

It was a Saturday. The whole family gathered. Erika came in the back door. Her parents helped her up the steps, one in front, one behind. When Erika walked in, she smelled one of her mother’s signature candles.

“And she just beamed,” Erika’s mother said. “She goes, ‘Mom, the house smells so good! It’s so good to be home!’ “

Tomorrow: 1,225 days after the accident

Tomorrow, Erika Amfahr – 24 years old, her blond hair covered by her graduation cap, her left foot dragging slightly behind her – will walk into the Smith Chapel on the Simpson College campus in Indianola.

Following tradition, Erika will walk between the College Gates. She’ll enter Cowles Fieldhouse, the same gym where she once played volleyball. Her parents will scan the crowd to spot her among the 388 graduating seniors. The alma mater will play.

The past 3½ years have been a battle. Erika started in intensive outpatient therapy near her family’s home after she got out of the Ankeny brain rehabilitation center. She learned to write with her right hand, since her brain injury affected the left side of her body. She worked on building her memory. She learned to walk without hyperextending her knee. She assumed she would never make it back to college.

By fall 2008, Erika had moved in with her sister in Urbandale, and her dad drove her to class at Simpson College. Everything was slower than Erika wanted: walking, writing, comprehending. School was harder.

The next semester she moved back to campus, took two classes, gained a bit more independence. She exercised on an elliptical machine or a stationary bicycle. She got internships for college credit: at a hotel, at a clothing store, at the sports information department at Simpson. She took stats for the volleyball team.

“It’s hell, or it was, but good can come out of this scenario,” Erika said recently. “You can achieve so much more than you ever thought. I’m not at home. I’m not dependent on mom and dad 24/7 – and I can remember when I was. Because in my situation, with what happened, I should be thankful.”

Now Erika is applying for jobs in retail – no luck yet. Some day she’d love to get married, have kids. And she’d love to adopt, her way of giving back to those who helped her.

But first things first. When Erika’s name is announced tomorrow, she’ll walk across the stage. The college president will hand her a piece of paper with the words, “degree of bachelor of arts.”

The only thing Erika is worried about is walking back down the steps. She hopes there’s a railing.

Her mother is worried about something else: “I just hope I can see it through the tears,” Cathy Amfahr said