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Annie "toots" Popsicle

Annie My story begins on September 26, 1998. I was working overtime at my new full time job doing data entry which I just started 6 days earlier. My best friend Stacey also worked at this company and helped me get the job. Stacey and I decided we wanted to go to the casino that night, I had just gotten my picture ID so the timing was perfect. Stacey had to work at the pizza place(our part time job) that evening. We found out then that 2 of our other friends were going to the casino too that evening so we decided to go together. Bryan (one of the two guys we went with) told us that we should wait till late to go that way it would be less busy at the casino.

After Stacey got off work we went to Bryan's house and hung out. We left for the casino at 2:30am on Sunday September 27, 1998. Stacey and I were sitting in the backseat of Bryan's car. While stopped at a red light a drunk driver hit the car from behind going 60mph, no brakes. Stacey was killed instantly. I was taken by ambulance to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN. I suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in a coma for a month. I also suffered numerous internal injuries. I was given a 33% chance of surviving. I was in ICU for the 4 weeks I was in a coma.

Annie After I woke from the coma I was then accepted to Knapp rehab located in the hospital. In there I was to undergo extensive therapy for my injuries. I couldn't use the left side of my body, my brain wasn't aware it even existed. I would do inpatient rehab for 2 months. I was then released to go home and I was then doing day hospital...5 days a week from 8am to 3pm. My therapies included Physical therapy, Occupational therapy, Recreational therapy, neuropsychology and speech therapy. December 10, 1998 I was to go back to the hospital to undergo an angiogram to check on the aneurysm in one of my earlier tests. They found the aneurysm had grown tremendously, and they needed to clip it ASAP. December 11, 1998 I was rushed into surgery to take care of it. The surgery went well.

Annie In late December I had completed Speech therapy. Now I only had to do Physical and Occupational therapies. In the early months of 1999, my therapists allowed me to bring my rollerblades to rehab and try that. I was very thrilled to be given the chance to try that. Before the wreck I was an avid rollerblader and I played hockey. It was a lot of work to even stand on them, but I was able to control myself on them. My left side was still not working good at all, my doctors decided that maybe injections of botox may improve my left hand. They were right...since then I have been getting the injections every 3 months. The tone in my left leg was still a mystery, my therapists and docs. are very baffled at the tone patterns. They decideAnnie to try botox in the leg and that didn't do a bit of good, their next attempt at fixing it was Phenol injections, that didn't work either. They decided maybe surgery was the best option, so again I go under the knife. This surgery worked and gave me a lot more mobility of my ankle, so I wasn't walking on my tip-toes.

In May of 1999 the court stuff took place for the drunk driver, he pleads not guilty so we have to have a trial, to make is short he is sentenced to 4 years in prison for the death of my best friend, he also gets 2 years for my injuries, and 2 years of probation for injuries another passenger received. Six years for what he did?? That was a very trying couple of weeks for everyone involved.

Annie It has been almost 2 years now and I'm still attending rehab twice a week, I'm lucky to have such wonderful people around me and I'm still working hard on the rollerblading! I have not yet looked into jobs or education, but I'm hoping that will come along with time. Dealing with the injuries I received has been very hard, but even harder has been facing the fact that my best friend is dead. I like to think that her spirit is being kept alive, her family is wonderful and we're gonna see to it that this does not have to happen to others.

I hope my story will show people that it *can* happen to you...Stacey had just turned 19 years old 3 weeks before the crash occurred, she has No future and my future is forever scared.

Email Annie