EMU senior Cara Atkins tells the story of her amazing recovery from a near-fatal accident in chapel Mar. 15
Photo by Mike Tripp, DN-R
The last time Cara Atkins spoke here, she needed all the help she could get. “I couldn’t make it up the stairs by myself,” Atkins said.
Atkins made her assisted ascent to the stage in Eastern Mennonite University’s Lehman Auditorium five years ago, two years after surviving a midwinter auto accident that changed her life. She returned to the podium for Monday’s chapel service, a stirring reminder of resolve’s might.
Atkins’ tidy pose obscures a wrecked past. Attired in a luminously red blouse and black dress, the resilient 26-year-old Fulks Run woman serves as a poster child for deceptive looks, a battered book with a sleek cover.
From a distance, a smartly groomed, blonde Atkins resembles a beauty-pageant contestant. Only up close is the “scar” visible: a stitched right wrist that physicians fused as part of her physical reconstruction. Atkins’ erect posture disguises internal pain, and a soft voice gives only the vaguest of clues that Atkins spent the first seven weeks after the crash in a coma. Says Atkins: “I don’t look like a typical disabled person.”
Separate acts of kindness and neglect conspired against Atkins on the evening of Jan. 18, 1997. Returning home from Harrisonburg along Va. 259, 1 mile west of U.S. 11, Atkins’ vehicle collided with an eastbound car that crossed the median. Atkins had driven to Harrisonburg to return a pair of jeans to a friend.
After five months at the University of Virginia Medical Center, Atkins returned home with experts’ ominous news: Physicians at the Charlottesville facility told Atkins’ mother, Darlene Spitler, that her brain-damaged daughter was “not rehabilitative.” To Spitler, suggestions that her youngest daughter, who ran track and belonged to the cheerleading squad at Broadway High School, would never recover seemed inconceivable. Spitler, 55, turned to her faith. “We asked for a miracle,” Spitler said.
Atkins believes what she received fell nothing short of miraculous. More therapy, combined with prayers from family and friends, followed. Progress came incrementally. In August 1999, a semi-invalid Atkins enrolled at EMU.
Atkins credits her mom, sisters Edy Long and Carla Monger, and personal therapist Mary Davis at the Rockingham Memorial Hospital Wellness Center with her physical improvement, and praises a higher power with helping her find an inner strength.
“Many times I wanted to give up,” said Atkins, who also used singer R. Kelley’s inspirational song “I Believe I Can Fly” to whip despondency and rage. She admits to being bitter initially, but “I realized it wasn’t doing me any good.”
Blaming God never occurred to Atkins. As a teen, Atkins says, her faith waned. The event that physically leveled Atkins reawakened her spiritually.
“I know that God gives people free will and He allows them to do right or wrong,” she said. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Atkins’ timing for love was considerably better. Last June, Atkins began dating Neal Phillips, 20, a Rockingham County dairy farmer who met Atkins while caring for her horse. The couple became engaged last November and plan to wed next year.
Atkins juggles studies with public speaking, addressing listeners on a variety of topics. No cause crusader, Atkins simply ties her topic to her crowd. One subject she always includes, Atkins says, is God’s capacity to achieve the impossible.
“Miracles do happen,” Atkins said. “Most people don’t believe in them anymore, but here I am.”
The pending joys of graduation and marriage can’t purge her pain, says Atkins, who still struggles with balance and arthritis.
“At times I feel like I’m 65 years old,” Atkins said.
Which, given the alternative, isn’t all that bad.