Aspiring triathlete learns new meaning of endurance

Cindy Finke always figured she’d finish Sunday’s Coeur d’Alene Ironman triathlon.

It might not be pretty and it might not be fast, but the 50-year-old Spokane nurse practitioner assumed she’d complete the grueling swim, bike and run event.

“My goals were to finish by the time they closed the course with no injuries,” recalled Finke, who is still registered for this year’s race under bib number 2456.

What she didn’t know was that she’d have to wait nearly two years to start.

Last Aug. 19, halfway through a 60-mile training ride with her husband, Mark, Finke’s future was derailed.

The driver of the 1995 Jeep Cherokee told a Spokane County Sheriff’s Office deputy she didn’t see the cyclists as they approached the intersection of Hayford and McFarlane roads near Airway Heights, a report showed.

Cindy Finke could almost swear she did.

A witness said the Cherokee stopped, paused – and then pulled out in front of the two riders.

“The last thing I remember is white, then black, right here,” Finke said, holding a hand inches from her face. “I only looked up with my eyes. I’m so glad I didn’t look up with my face. I would have been killed.”

As it was, Finke apparently collided head-first with the rear passenger side of the Cherokee. An imprint of the door handle can still be seen in the cracked helmet she was wearing. Mark Finke crashed into his wife, sliding his bike beneath hers.

Cindy Finke was knocked unconscious by the impact. Mark Finke rushed to her side, oblivious to pain in his broken thumbs.

“He said, ‘Your eyes were open and rolled back in your head. I thought you were dead,’ ” Cindy Finke recalled.

Within minutes, an ambulance arrived and transported Cindy Finke to Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.

The Cherokee’s driver, Patsy L. Wanderi, 50, of Medical Lake was cited for failing to yield the right of way, which carried a $153 fine, according to Spokane sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Dave Reagan. Wanderi could not be located for comment.

At the hospital, doctors diagnosed Finke with head-to-toe trauma. There was a closed head injury, five neck fractures, a tear in the joint in her jaw. She broke a tooth, her left shoulder blade and a couple of ribs. She suffered a tear in her left shoulder, a separated collarbone, nerve damage in her left forearm. She damaged her right knee so badly two surgeries were required within a month.

“I could claim disability for the rest of my life, if I wanted,” Finke said.

Instead, Finke decided what she really wanted was to finish Ironman after all.

At first, she thought perhaps she could recover in time for this year’s event. But the reality of physical therapy dashed that hope by January, Finke said.

“In December I tried swimming with a big brace on,” she said. “Everything blew up. Everything hurt. To give up the Ironman goal was hard.”

Then Finke contacted P.Z. Pearce, the medical director for Ironman events in Idaho, Arizona and Hawaii. She’d known Pearce for more than 20 years, since his days as a resident. Since then, he’s become an expert on sports medicine who is now about to open a clinic for athletes in Post Falls.

Pearce said he has agreed to get Finke in shape for Ironman 2007.

“Where does physical therapy end and training begin?” Finke said.

Explaining her urge to participate in Ironman can be difficult, Finke said, especially to nonathletes. She knows most people would be content to simply recover completely, instead of pushing their bodies to endurance extremes.

“It’s just not my nature to sit back,” she said. “I’ve always done multiple jobs. I’ve always done multiple projects.”

That attitude will come in handy, Pearce said, because Finke’s success is not guaranteed. She can’t swim until she can do all of her arm and shoulder exercises with 5-pound weights, probably in July. She can’t run until a year after her last knee surgery, which will be September. She has been biking, a little, first on an indoor bike on rollers, then on a specially adapted cycle outdoors.

“It’s scary,” Finke said. “It’s still scary.”

The effects of the crash likely will linger long after next year’s Ironman. Finke has hired a Spokane lawyer, Leigh Talley, although no civil lawsuit has been filed.

But focusing on the race that was supposed to celebrate her 50th birthday means something, Finke said.

“Will I do it? I’m planning on it,” Finke said. “I do better if I just keep going.”