Somewhere in Heaven: The Remarkable Love Story of Dana and Christopher Reeve by Christopher Andersen Page B

nurse looked at her blankly. “The doctor,” she said calmly, “will be out in a minute.”
    She would not have to hear from the doctor to realize that something was terribly wrong. Outside the waiting room, Dana had a clear view of a white-and-red medical helicopter with the name “Pegasus” emblazoned on the side landing in the parking lot. “Look, Mommy,” Will said, pointing to the helicopter. “A horsy with wings !”
    The young emergency room doctor on duty, William Maloney, had already ordered that Chris be airlifted the forty-five miles to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. As the chopper waited, Dana, still holding on tight to Will, was es- corted to Dr. Maloney’s office. With Will sitting in her lap and playfully “honking” Mommy’s nose, Dana was told the grim news: Chris had broken his neck, and only a respirator was keeping him alive. If he had any chance for survival, he would require the kind
    of cutting-edge care that only a major medical facility like UVA Medical Center could provide. With each new, devastating state- ment about Chris’s condition, Dana merely nodded. By the time the doctor was finally finished running down the list of injuries and what they meant, Dana felt as if she had just been worked over in a boxing ring. All the while Will, oblivious to what was going on, kept honking Mommy’s nose.
    There was no guarantee that Chris would even survive the hel- icopter trip. “Perhaps you should see your husband now,” Dr. Maloney told Dana. She knew what they were saying, but she had Will with her and did not want to upset the little boy. She handed Will to a nurse, and was taken to the room in intensive care where Chris was hooked up to a ventilator. According to a member of the hospital staff, Dana was “wide-eyed, obviously in shock, and it looked like she might just keel over. But then she put her hand on his shoulder, whispered ‘I love you,’ took a deep breath, and walked away.”
    Dana called the one man she always relied on for sound med- ical advice: her dad. When she told him that Chris had broken his neck, Chuck Morosini did not even try to conceal his anxi- ety. “Oh God,” he blurted out. But his concern was also tempered by a belief that, with the best medical care, Chris was young and strong enough to overcome the odds. “Look, honey,” he told his daughter, “if anyone can beat this, it’s Chris.”
    Dana certainly believed it. For now, however, she had a job to do. She and Will had to be there when Chris regained conscious- ness at the UVA Medical Center. Dana had her own coping method for situations like these, although she had to admit to her- self that there had never really been a time quite like this. Rather
    than crumbling, she merely dealt with the situation head-on— calmly, efficiently, and without complaint. She carried Will to her rental car, drove back to the Holiday Inn, then packed up their things and checked out. She even managed a wan smile for an in- sistent fan who wanted to have her picture taken with Dana. She then strapped Will into his car seat and drove the forty-five miles to UVA.
    During the drive, Dana prayed that Chris would survive his injuries. When she got to the hospital around four-thirty, she was taken aside by emergency room doctor Mohan Nadkarni.
    “I had to break the news of what had happened,” Nadkarni said. “Dana was amazing. She was clearly upset but kept herself together. She was horrified, but she never broke down.”
    “Mo,” as he insisted on being called, told her that Chris had been taken to an intensive care unit on the sixth floor in the hos- pital’s west wing. Mo thought Dana needed to know that there was a chance Chris might never again breathe on his own. For whatever reason, this was even harder to take than the news that Chris might die from his injuries. Dana reeled backward, then steadied herself.
    Dana’s father was among the first to arrive at the hospital, and,