Three weeks after a brutal car crash trapped Christine Vatuone
in her minivan, she’s looking good. Hairdresser Jenny Fuller
carefully feathers the ends of her hair, letting the cut bits fall
onto a smock draped over her wheelchair, rolled into the bathroom
of her Gilroy home.
Gilroy – Three weeks after a brutal car crash trapped Christine Vatuone in her minivan, she’s looking good. Hairdresser Jenny Fuller carefully feathers the ends of her hair, letting the cut bits fall onto a smock draped over her wheelchair, rolled into the bathroom of her Gilroy home.
“You don’t realize how much support is in your life until something tragic happens,” said Vatuone. Confined to a wheelchair until her bones mend, she rolls between kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, where greeting cards from friends smother a bulletin board. “Suddenly, life looks beautiful.”
Vatuone was badly injured in a vehicle accident Wednesday, June 6, when a Hollister woman crashed nearly head-on with her car on Frazier Lake Road, sending both vehicles spinning. When the crash appeared in the Dispatch, far-flung friends called to check on her, worried by a photo of her mangled minivan.
Firefighters had to peel back the van’s roof to free her, pulling her out in excruciating pain. Later, one of those same firefighters, Tim Price, telephoned to ask how she was doing, Vatuone said. Her husband Mark thanked him as the helicopter lifted her toward a trauma center in San Jose.
“They really did an amazing job,” she said. “They were rooting for me.”
As she recuperates, Vatuone isn’t able to work at Compassion Pregnancy Services, her job in Hollister; ordinary tasks such as taking a shower or changing clothes become frustrating. But with a little help from her friends, family and South Valley Community Church, her spirits have healed.
“I want to thank the community for their support,” she said. “As painful as this has been, I’m recuperating.”
Besides, she said, she wants to reassure those who saw the scary crash photos: She’s doing fine.
