By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

A little over a month since being seriously injured in a highway accident on Interstate 15 between Moapa and Mesquite, Logandale resident Tracy Rodgers is on a slow and difficult path to recovery.

Since the morning of June 23, when her car collided at highway speed into a tour bus stopped in the fast lane near mile marker 97, Rodgers said she has lost track of how many surgeries she has undergone.

She tries to count them down during a recent interview. A rod was inserted into her right leg to support a broken femur. Her left lower leg had to be completely rebuilt below the knee. She received surgeries for multiple fractures to her left hip. She received fractures to vertebrate in her neck and lower back which were stabilized early on. And her left arm and wrist were completely shattered with more surgeries yet to come in that area.

“These are all non-weight bearing injuries meaning I can’t put weight on anything,” Rodgers said. “So I’ve been bed-ridden for five weeks. It makes physical therapy a real challenge.”

But Rodgers has nevertheless been undergoing a rigorous physical therapy schedule. She has been in therapy 2-3 times per day for over an hour per session. Those sessions have been tremendously difficult, Rodgers said, little by little struggling to get motion back to areas of her body that have sustained such serious damage.

“I’ve gotten to the point where I almost dread the mornings because I have to start it all over again,” she said.

Still she is facing these challenges with a smile on her face and a positive outlook.

“It does no good to be down about it,” Rodgers said. “At the hospital people kept saying they were amazed that, with all these injuries, I always seemed to be smiling. But you can look at anything in two ways. If you are down and out it doesn’t change the situation. It just makes things worse.”

Tracy’s determination and positive attitude seemed to have paid off thus far. She said that her doctors have been surprised at how quickly she has recovered from very serious injuries. She was in the hospital for only nine days before being released into the care of her sister Erica Garrett and brother-in-law Eric of Mesquite. Erica is a registered nurse and director of Virgin Valley Home Care. Eric is a physical therapist who is also on hand to assist with Rodgers’ care. Rodgers is staying in the Garretts’ home during her recovery and receiving her care there.

“They have turned one of their bedrooms into a rehab rom for me,” Rodgers said. “It is wonderful because I can receive better care here than I would in a rehab center. My two boys can come and visit me more. So things with recovery are moving a lot faster than expected.”

Doctors are still unsure of what the long-lastings effects of the injuries will be, if any. Rodgers said that it is still early to tell, for example, if she will return to full use of her left arm. Doctors told Rodgers that when she came to the hospital, the x-ray of her forearm and wrist looked like a bag of crushed Ruffles potato chips.

“It was pretty bad,” she said. “They have said that I might only recover 75% of the use of that arm. But they also said that I’ve proven them wrong so many times already that the final result might end up better than that.”

The event that caused this ordeal happened early in the morning on June 23. Rodgers was driving I-15 on her way to Mesquite for work. Suddenly a large tour bus tried to access an emergency turnaround in the median by illegally crossing the lanes of traffic right in front of Rodgers’ car. With virtually no time to react, her car hit the bus at full highway speed.

“I have no clear memory of the accident,” Rodgers said. “The last thing I remembered was getting on the freeway and turning on the radio. I didn’t remember ever seeing the bus. Later in hospital I had little images of memory that there was nowhere to go. There was traffic in the right lane and I couldn’t pull over there. Next thing I remember though at the accident was pulling the air bag off of me.”

In the days following the accident, authorities from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said that the tour bus, owned by San Francisco based USAsia Tours, should not have been operating at the time of the accident as the company’s license had been revoked for failure to provide proof of insurance.

At the time of the accident Rodgers was the reigning Ms. Nevada and had been preparing for competition in the 2011 Ms. United States pageant which was held in July. She was considered a serious contender in the pageant. But the accident put Rodger’s dreams on hold.

“I didn’t think much about it in the days after the accident,” Rodgers said. “But as the time for the pageant came, and it was the day that I would have checked in, it was very difficult. It was a lot of work to prepare for that. It was a big opportunity that I was looking forward to, taken away. But there is always next year.”

Rodgers received consolation from the great kindness shown by her fellow contestants in the pageant. They paid tribute to her at one point during the pageant. She also received numerous cards, notes, gifts, texts and calls wishing her well and expressing concern for her.

“That was so meaningful to me,” she said.

The accident has, of course, had a profound effect on Rodger’s professional life. As a registered nurse, Tracy opened her own Mesquite wound care clinic in March. The new business was a partnership with her sister and brother-in-law who have continued to keep it in operation during Tracy’s absence. “But they have had to shoulder the whole burden of the business without me,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers hopes to be able to soon start adding work to her schedule little by little. “My personal goal is to be back to work in some limited capacity within eight weeks or so,” she said.

Rodgers expressed tremendous appreciation to numerous family, friends and caregivers who had given generously of their time to assist in her care.

“I’m just surrounded by wonderful people with an outpouring of support,” she said. “I couldn’t have ever got through all of this without them. It just doesn’t get any better than that.”

A fundraiser to help with the cost of Rodgers’ caresill be held on Monday, August 22 at the Veterans Memorial Park in Mesquite from 5-8 p.m. Barbecue hamburgers and hotdogs will be sold at the event. Prizes will also be raffled off. For information about the fundraiser call 702-346-7565

Rodgers’ family has also set up a recovery fund at Wells Fargo Bank. To make a donation, go to any Wells Fargo branch and donate to account number 5664274817.