Hope keeps quadriplegic, family going
Every time Saundra Dorosh beats her brother, Doug Grace, at Trivial Pursuit, he’s reminded of life’s nasty injustices.
He doesn’t mind losing regularly to his sister. She’s smart and focused, definitely a bright star in his high-achieving family. She also depends on a ventilator to breathe and can’t move her body below her neck – the result of a freak accident last year.
“She was a snowboarder, golfer, the most active woman I’ve ever known,” said Grace, who lives in Hayden Lake. “What’s she got is the typical Christopher Reeve injury, but she can still kick anyone’s butt in Trivial Pursuit.”
“Superman” star Christopher Reeve has lived as a quadriplegic since a throw from a horse in 1995 severed his spinal cord. Dorosh, 54, broke the same vertebra as Reeve when she hit her head on the side of a pool as she swam underwater.
Friends and family have organized a benefit Oct. 5 at Brix Underground, 317 E. Sherman Ave., in Coeur d’Alene to raise money for Dorosh’s medical costs.
Dorosh was attending her niece’s wedding in California when the accident occurred. She was playing with kids in a pool, swimming slowly underwater toward them like a shark. Her head hit the pool’s side, which knocked her out. Guests saw her floating face down and believed she was teasing the kids. They realized after a few moments that she was hurt, pulled her out of the water and revived her. Her neck was broken.
She spent three weeks in a hospital in California before transferring to Spokane’s Sacred Heart, then Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center for four months. The accident caused no brain damage, but cut off all feeling below her neck, robbing her of the ability to breathe on her own.
Dorosh’s condition necessitates specialized care not widely offered. She stayed at Regency Care Center in Spokane until her medical insurance stopped covering care costs. Idaho’s Medicaid directed her to a care center in Boise. Her family in North Idaho balked and she moved home, making her one of the first ventilator-dependent quadriplegics in the state to live outside a care center, Grace said.
Dorosh, a denturist before the accident, sold her business, Creative Dentures in Hayden, to help pay medical costs. Her family – husband David and sons Gabriel, 20, and Michael, 17 – has deeded their home to Medicaid to cover medical costs. Gabriel left college in California after his mother’s accident to attend the less-expensive University of Idaho.
Grace said Dr. George Bell in Hayden keeps Dorosh’s family abreast of the latest research on spinal cord injuries.
“She’s waiting for stem cell research, a breakthrough in experimental spinal cord research,” Grace said. “Hope is what keeps her going.”
The Oct. 5 benefit at the Brix will start at 5 p.m. and feature all-you-can-eat hors d’oeuvres and wine supplied by J. Lohr Wineries in Paso Robles, Calif., Charlie’s Produce, First American Title and Marshall Mend Realty. Tickets cost $25 and are limited to 150. For information, call 772-6634.
To otherwise help with Dorosh’s medical costs, send checks to Saundra’s Healing Fund, Idaho Independent Bank, 8882 N. Government Way, Hayden Lake, ID, 83835.