Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve by Christopher Andersen Page A
Authors: Christopher Andersen
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ground,” Reid said. “Chris is such a big man. He was going forward, his head over the top of the horse’s head. He had committed his upper body to the jump. But the horse—whether it chickened out or felt Chris’s weight over its head, I don’t know. But the horse decided, ‘I can’t do this.’ And it backed off the jump.”
As he had done two years earlier in Calgary, Chris pitched for- ward and started to slide down the horse’s neck. Only this time, Chris’s hands were tangled in the reins, and as he soared for- ward—Buck was putting his head down to avoid Chris’s weight—he pulled the bridle, bit and all, off Buck’s head.
Unable to break his fall with hands that were tangled up in the horse’s tack, Chris hurtled straight ahead, striking his head on the top rail, just under the rim of his helmet. Then he plowed fore- head-first into the ground on the other side of the fence, flip- ping over and snapping his neck in the process. As Chris lay there, motionless, the judge announced over the loudspeaker, “Super- man is down!”
Buck backed away, then bolted for the stables. Chris, mean- while, turned ashen. Although there was no way of assessing the damage at the time, Chris’s first and second vertebrae were shat- tered. It was roughly equivalent to the spinal injury suffered when someone is hanged.
Seconds after Chris hit the ground, one of the spectators heard him say, “I can’t breathe.” But by the time Helmut Boehme, one of the organizers of the event, arrived one minute later, Chris was unconscious and his lips were turning blue. “He was not moving,
he was not breathing,” Boehme said. It seemed, he added, as if “the life had gone out of him.”
It was three minutes before paramedics arrived on the scene. One dropped to his knees immediately and began giving Chris mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Within a minute, he was breathing—though barely. Regaining consciousness, he was soon in an agitated state. Turning his head back and forth, Chris demanded to be let alone as emergency medical workers— aided by a woman anesthesiologist who happened to be among the spectators that day—squeezed air into him using a handheld device called an ambu bag.
Stabilizing his neck with a collar, the paramedics carefully lifted Chris onto a stretcher and carried him to a waiting ambulance. Then, rather than cause further damage by jostling the patient, the ambulance drove off the field at a snail’s pace.
Dana was still waiting for Will to stir from his afternoon nap when the phone rang in her room at the Holiday Inn. It was 3:20, and she thought for a moment that Chris might have fin- ished early and was calling with good news about his perfor- mance. She realized she was wrong the instant she heard the strange voice at the other end of the line. It was Peter Lazar, one of the riders who had driven down from New York with Chris to compete.
“Now, don’t panic,” Lazar told Dana.
Her heart sank. Before Dana could say anything, Lazar con- tinued, “Chris had a spill.” She could already tell by his measured tone and the careful parsing of words that this was more than a sprained wrist. “I don’t know why,” Lazar said mysteriously, “but they had to take him off in a stretcher.”
Dana was not prone to panic, although she knew she had to be at her husband’s side. She approached the situation the way she ap- proached everything in life: methodically, and with confidence. She scooped Will out of bed, asked for directions to the hospital, and drove herself there.
Carrying Will into the emergency room, Dana was surprised at how quiet everything seemed; she was, with the exception of one woman whose adolescent son was having a relatively minor cut stitched up, the only person in the waiting room.
“Hi, I’m Dana Reeve,” she said to one nurse who passed by. “My husband is here.”
“Oh, OK,” the nurse answered matter-of-factly. “Is my husband all right? Is he OK?”
The
As he had done two years earlier in Calgary, Chris pitched for- ward and started to slide down the horse’s neck. Only this time, Chris’s hands were tangled in the reins, and as he soared for- ward—Buck was putting his head down to avoid Chris’s weight—he pulled the bridle, bit and all, off Buck’s head.
Unable to break his fall with hands that were tangled up in the horse’s tack, Chris hurtled straight ahead, striking his head on the top rail, just under the rim of his helmet. Then he plowed fore- head-first into the ground on the other side of the fence, flip- ping over and snapping his neck in the process. As Chris lay there, motionless, the judge announced over the loudspeaker, “Super- man is down!”
Buck backed away, then bolted for the stables. Chris, mean- while, turned ashen. Although there was no way of assessing the damage at the time, Chris’s first and second vertebrae were shat- tered. It was roughly equivalent to the spinal injury suffered when someone is hanged.
Seconds after Chris hit the ground, one of the spectators heard him say, “I can’t breathe.” But by the time Helmut Boehme, one of the organizers of the event, arrived one minute later, Chris was unconscious and his lips were turning blue. “He was not moving,
he was not breathing,” Boehme said. It seemed, he added, as if “the life had gone out of him.”
It was three minutes before paramedics arrived on the scene. One dropped to his knees immediately and began giving Chris mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Within a minute, he was breathing—though barely. Regaining consciousness, he was soon in an agitated state. Turning his head back and forth, Chris demanded to be let alone as emergency medical workers— aided by a woman anesthesiologist who happened to be among the spectators that day—squeezed air into him using a handheld device called an ambu bag.
Stabilizing his neck with a collar, the paramedics carefully lifted Chris onto a stretcher and carried him to a waiting ambulance. Then, rather than cause further damage by jostling the patient, the ambulance drove off the field at a snail’s pace.
Dana was still waiting for Will to stir from his afternoon nap when the phone rang in her room at the Holiday Inn. It was 3:20, and she thought for a moment that Chris might have fin- ished early and was calling with good news about his perfor- mance. She realized she was wrong the instant she heard the strange voice at the other end of the line. It was Peter Lazar, one of the riders who had driven down from New York with Chris to compete.
“Now, don’t panic,” Lazar told Dana.
Her heart sank. Before Dana could say anything, Lazar con- tinued, “Chris had a spill.” She could already tell by his measured tone and the careful parsing of words that this was more than a sprained wrist. “I don’t know why,” Lazar said mysteriously, “but they had to take him off in a stretcher.”
Dana was not prone to panic, although she knew she had to be at her husband’s side. She approached the situation the way she ap- proached everything in life: methodically, and with confidence. She scooped Will out of bed, asked for directions to the hospital, and drove herself there.
Carrying Will into the emergency room, Dana was surprised at how quiet everything seemed; she was, with the exception of one woman whose adolescent son was having a relatively minor cut stitched up, the only person in the waiting room.
“Hi, I’m Dana Reeve,” she said to one nurse who passed by. “My husband is here.”
“Oh, OK,” the nurse answered matter-of-factly. “Is my husband all right? Is he OK?”
The
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