[4] February 3, 2012 [ CARTER from page 1 ] After medics stabilized, him, he was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He doesn’t remember the trip. “The next thing I do remember was being in the hospital in a hospital bed,” he said. “I felt like a rag doll. I was in a hospital bed and then whisked away to some other place. It was just faded memories, in and out. Just trying to stay relaxed through the whole process and not panic was kind of tough.” With one of his vertebrae shattered, doctors at Harborview Medical Center had no choice but to fuse together the T10 to L2 vertebrae in his lower spine to protect his spinal cord, which was not severed. “To be able to fix that one, they had to fuse five vertebrae together,” he said.
www.auburn-reporter.com After surgery, Carter called Harborview his home for more than a month, celebrating Christmas with his wife of 10 years, Amy, and his 4-yearold daughter, Brooklin, in the hospital. “I don’t feel like it was Christmas, but at the same time we made it special for my daughter,” he said. “I was really looking forward to this Christmas with my daughter. At age 4½, it’s magic. But we worked at making it special up at the hospital. We told her Santa was going to visit the hospital.”
Help from friends While Carter was busy recovering from his surgery and healing his battered body at Harborview, his friends, family, students and coworkers were busy, too. The Mount Baker Middle School community
responded with fundraisers, including “Caps for Carter” and “Jammies for Jeremiah.” “As soon as the accident happened and we got back to school that Monday, I talked to staff and we decided as a staff that the family was going to need financial support,” said Mount Baker Principal Greg Brown. “We started ‘Caps for Carter’ day, where kids pay a dollar to forego our no-hat rule. Kids were walking up and putting $20s in the box and saying they didn’t even want to wear a hat, they just wanted to help. It was just an outpouring of support.” Soon Auburn’s Cascade Middle School and Holy Family School got into the action, too, all three raising $7,325 for the Carter family. “They just had so much fun with it, and their intentions were right there,” Carter said of the fundraising activities. “The support from Mount Baker has been
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BRAVO City of Auburn Performing Arts Series
Comedy at the Ave Feb 17, 7:30pm Auburn Ave. Theater
Three comedians in one night keep you laughing all night long! Headliner Bobby Tessel is one of only a few comics to appear on both, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, and “The Late Show with David Letterman”. Tessel won the Northern Californian Comedy Competition and was a Finalist in the San Francisco International Stand-Up Comedy Competition. Tickets: $17/$15
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unbelievable.” The good will towards the Carter family, however, didn’t stop with his students and coworkers. When Carter returned home on Dec. 30, he was surprised to find friends and family had chipped in to remodel his house, stripping out carpets and installing hardwood floors to make it easier for him to get around in his wheelchair. They had also built a ramp to his front door. His brothers, Enoch and Jake, got to work widening doorways and rebuilding the master bath to make it ADA accessible. Add in his mother Linda’s contributions helping out, and Carter was “overwhelmed” by the support. “The support of my family has been incredible,” he said. “I can’t thank them enough.” Now, Carter is focused on recovery. Although he is prepared to spend the rest of his life in the chair, there is still an outside chance that he’ll regain enough feeling to walk some day. A sliver of hope wide enough for him to grasp. “With my legs not working, I guess I haven’t come to a point of acceptance,” he said. “We’re hoping that the
pressure from the column and the spinal fluid will press that piece of bone, which is just floating in there, and float it back over to the vertebrae. That’s what the surgeon believes is going to happen.” Already, he says, he’s getting a bit of feeling back in his legs. He describes it as “pressure” rather than an internal sense of feeling.
Future tests He’ll find out more on Feb. 27 when he goes in to get his back brace off and to forego more testing. “We’re going to take the X-rays,” he said. “I also have an MRI scheduled because I want to know what the status of my spinal column is. If that bone hasn’t floated back to where it’s supposed to be, then we’re going to talk about surgical options to take it out. I think that by the way he (his surgeon) said it, it means there is going to be a lot of danger to going in there and messing around with the spinal column. The feeling and movement that I have right now could go away. So we’re hoping and praying for the best.” Carter continued: “If everything is good
FREE TAX PREP: Beginning Feb. 3 and running through April 6. AARP Foundation Tax-Aide volunteers are available to prepare 2011 tax returns at the Auburn Senior Center. The program is for taxpayers with low and moderate income with special attention to those age 60 and older. Returns are done by appointment only on Monday and Tuesday mornings and Wednesday evenings. Call the center at 253-931-3018 to make an appointment.
WASTEMOBILE RETURNS: Beginning this weekend and continuing every Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the King County Wastemobile offers residents a convenient place to safely drop off oil-based paint, propane tanks, motor oil and other hazardous household wastes. The service is available in the northwest corner of the SuperMall, next to Sports Authority, 1101 Supermall Way. For more information, call the Household Hazards Line at 206-296-4692 or 1-888-TOXIC ED (869-4233) or visit www.hazwastehelp.org.
Swingin’ At The Sands: A Sinatra Tribute Sunday, February 12, 2:00 pm Auburn Avenue Theater
If you missed Sinatra with Count Basie in their legendary appearance at the Las Vegas Sands Hotel in 1966, here is your chance to see it again. Jim Kerl’s Swing Sixties band and Joey Jewell will take you back to the heyday of Las Vegas and the reigning king of the strip, Frank Sinatra. Joey is recognized as a wonderful vocal stylist and entertainer in the tradition of the great shows of the Rat-Pack era. Swing Session will play the music of the Count Basie Orchestra as originally arranged by Quincy Jones, setting the stage for an unforgettable afternoon of swinging big band music. Tickets: $20/$18
Princess Honey has to find a miracle The Frog Prince in order to save the ranch from the Feb. 25, 2:00pm clutches of the awful land-grabber, Auburn Ave. Theater Duke. Instead she finds a very large frog. The frog offers to help – but only in exchange for a promise. Tickets $6
Tickets www.auburnwa.gov/arts | 253-931-3043
from the surgeon’s perspective, I’ll go back into Harborview as a live-in, using the rehabilitation facilities for two-to-four weeks,” he said. “Basically, they’ll be teaching me what I’m supposed to be doing and how I’m going to live.” Whatever the tests show, Carter is determined to return to teaching, hopefully next year. “I’d love to be back in the classroom,” he said. Brown added he hoped to see Carter return to his school. “I could tell right away just by being in his classroom and observing how much he cares for every kid and the advocacy he had for every student,” Brown said. “He cares about every one of them, and they knew it.” Most important, however, Carter said he was determined to stay upbeat, positive and focused on recovery for Brooklin. “She likes to help out,” he said. “She’s very much a part of the recovery. She wants to pray every night that daddy’s back gets better and he can stand up and work his legs. It’s very motivational for my attitude towards rehab, having her around.”