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May 2017
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Healing Hands Reach Across Borders By Mark Miller, Contributing Writer
Though she could hardly speak any English, the petite young Honduran woman didn’t need a translator to express her feelings on this late April day. The happy tears streaming down her face, along with the hugs for and pictures with the doctors, nurses and other staff at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Flower Mound who had helped her said it all. This was the day Yerlin Maribel Sierra Avila was going to leave the facility and begin her physical therapy at one of her surgeon’s homes before heading back to her country in early May. The 29-year-old Avila had just received the news that the debilitating pain she had been experiencing over the last three years and kept her off a diseased leg for almost 18 months was resolved. The good news was the result of a group of caring people led by Dr. David
Evanich of Flower Mound’s Orthopedic Associates who arranged transportation and treatment that didn’t exist in Avila’s poor Central American country. “It’s been said that many hands make light work and I think that’s what happened here,” Evanich said. “A lot of people focused to put it all together and it turned into a great thing.” “Yerlin keeps saying ‘Gracias, Gracias.’ She’s so thankful because so many people in Honduras have hard lives and limited resources. After things stop working they either live with their problem or accommodate for it. “Can you imagine being 20-something and not being able to walk for a year and a half? That just wouldn’t happen in the United States. But in a developing country, a third world country, they just See HEALING on Page A23
Healing hands from southern Denton County made Yerlin Maribel Sierra Avila’s (center) treatment and recovery possible. Back row: Deana Carter, Jessica Rodriguez, Jackie Braun, Dr. David Evanich, Avila, Elsa Peterson, Kellee Jones, Eric Szostek. Front row: Blair Humphries, Catherine Strange, Donna Book, Gabby Maldonado, and Jasmin Griffin.
Twin Coves Park Almost Ready for Summer Fun By Mark Miller, Contributing Writer
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Chuck Jennings, Flower Mound’s director of parks and recreation, and park manager Mark Long are getting Twin Coves ready for summer fun.
Mother Nature has not been kind to users of area lakes over the past several years. First there were the drought years with boats grounded in dry marina slips. Then came the flood of 2015 that damaged the Lewisville Lake Dam and caused the Lake Grapevine spillway to overflow and close the roadway between Grapevine and Flower Mound. There is a silver-lining to the dark, rainover-filled skies that disrupted recreational opportunities in Flower Mound and beyond; the construction work at the town’s Twin Coves Park will be finished this summer. “The schedule was always … we were going to do something,” said Chuck Jennings, Flower Mound’s director of parks and recre-
ation. “It got delayed when the flooding happened. It worked out that we could shut down the park after the flooding. It stayed closed during our renovations.” The seemingly endless rain that flooded enough of the 243-acre park on the town’s southwest side forced it to close. That only deSee TWIN COVES on Page A9
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