‘Don’t worry. I have no plans of dying today.’ Survivor of horrific crash keeps moving forward

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Sheryl Van Houten is sitting on a couch in her home, crossing her prosthetic left leg over her right one that is thick with metal rods, stitches and scars.

She is stroking her therapy cat, Pippin Rose, whom she rescued 10 years ago, before the car crash that cost her a leg and so much more. Van Houten, now 53, has been through 26 surgeries on both legs. The crash, which took place March 1, 2012, on the way to work, destroyed her pancreas, and she is now diabetic. She continues to get weird cysts under her limbs that need tending.

But this mother, who lives in Star, has come to accept that her body is a long way from the belly-dancing days of her youth. Still, she doesn’t stop moving. She has built a garden, cans fruits and vegetables and make videos on her gardening and canning techniques that she posts online.

She has come to understand how to get around in this new world of hers.

“I only do things I’m good at,” she says, laughing.

She calls herself an “urban un-homesteader.” Her humor has helped. When she was told that surgeons could not save her left leg – in spite of two dozen surgeries she endured to keep it – she made and sold enough pumpkin pies to pay for her prosthetic leg. When it arrived, it was attached to a right foot. So for a few days, she literally had two right feet.

A KINSHIP WITH CATS FROM DAY 1

Now, Pippin Rose, who believes that everything pink in the universe is hers, has become her therapy cat. She sleeps on Van Houten’s shoulder and nudges her when she isn’t breathing quite right or when she senses it’s time for her owner to have another pain pill. Recently, Van Houten took a fall on her prosthetic leg, and Pippin Rose figured out a way to push the cellphone closer so she could call for human help.

Sheryl Van Houten has always loved cats, which is how she got her nickname, Kitty.

In 1967, her parents were on a camping trip near Jerome, Idaho, when Sheryl decided she wasn’t waiting any longer to greet the world. She was two months early. Her dad had been building a cradle, and it wasn’t anywhere near finished, and they put their 5 pound preemie in a shoebox in a drawer with their Siamese cat, Hadjime. She has felt a kinship with cats ever since. And that survivor instinct, arriving before her time, is part of her nature.

She needed that instinct on that winter day in 2012 when she was making a right-hand turn from Chinden Boulevard to Star Road, heading to Caldwell. She worked in a state-run Health and Welfare office. A state trooper was already alerted to an erratic driver when he actually saw the car heading on the wrong side of road — going straight for Van Houten’s blue Mazda RX8 sports car.

It was a present to herself for her 45th birthday.

THE CRASH ON CHINDEN

Van Houten was at the stoplight and heard horns blaring from all around but looked around for something to explain the cacophony. She didn’t see anything and proceeded to turn right.

And there she was. An SUV coming right at her.

It didn’t look like anyone was in the car.

“Everything went black and white,” Van Houten said.

She had three thoughts coming at her like bullets. Am I dreaming? I have nowhere to go. And finally, oh, this is going to leave a mark. The person’s car had already crossed the center line heading west in the east lanes. She quickly sized up her choices. Head into a canal on the right or a concrete tower on the left or put her car into neutral and just take the hit.

“I couldn’t get out of her way,” she recalled.

The whole front of the driver’s SUV was now on top of her and the birthday gift was now spinning into a field. The woman’s car was right behind her. The crash caused her engine block to smash into her legs, severing both femoral arteries. The steering wheel pushed into her chest and the visor cut through her forehead. Blood was pouring down her face.

The scene was so bad a the car behind her called for life support and within minutes the ambulances, fire department and coroner arrived. The guy that called in for the life support team happened to be a trauma surgeon from Saint Alphonsus. In front of him was the state trooper.

In the field in the wreck, Van Houten was quiet and trying to figure out why she couldn’t move her legs. She heard a voice. “Oh my God, did I hit something? What was that?” It was the erratic driver, now stopped in her tracks.

The state trooper was leaning into Van Houten’s passenger side. She reached over and unlocked the door.

“Morning,” she said. “Still alive and kicking.”

“Wow,” he answered. He could tell she had a good sense of humor given how dark the day was. “How are you? And what’s up with all the chocolate?”

She told him she was bringing Dove chocolate to her co-workers. There was now blood and chocolate everywhere.

“The jokes will get worse as the pain gets worse,” she said, asking whether he could see her legs. She didn’t know where they were. “Can you see bone?” she asked.

Yes, he said.

“OK. Please just save me,” she said. “Don’t worry. I have no plans of dying today.”

Within 12 minutes, she was being cut out of the car. Men were pulling her up by her belt loop. The only covering they had was a body bag, which they used to wrap her. The call came into Saint Alphonsus that Sheryl Van Houten was coming in.

Corrine Smith, a head nurse, saw the message.

They have been friends since they were kids. Smith called in every favor she had to prep the emergency room and the operating room to be ready with their best in 20 minutes. When her son showed up at the emergency room, the state trooper was there to meet him. He urged him to go say goodbye to his mother.

“Did my mom tell you she was going to die today?” asked the 20-year old. No, said the trooper. “Well, you don’t know my mom. If she says she is not going to die today, then she is not going to die today.”

His mother also happened to know the surgical technician, who carefully removed the glass from her hair and face and hands. That was all she remembers about that day.

A SURVIVOR’S LONG ROAD TO RECOVERY

Five days later, she was in an air ambulance on the way to Utah for more surgery to save her legs. Eight years later, she has been in the operating rooms 25 more times. During one of those surgeries, she had 13 different parts put in place to replace a knee. There’s been necrosis and staph infections. There were plates and screws in her ankle and screws and pins in her toes. The last two surgeries were for her amputation in 2017. There are still more surgeries in her future.

But remember who she is: A survivor.

When her leg was amputated below the knee, she began massaging the tissue right away and even started doing exercises. She would pound what was left of her leg into the bed. Within days, they had her up on a walker and the physical therapist asked her to try a few steps. She started walking around the hospital.

“How far do you want me to go?” she asked the therapist, who was watching in disbelief. It took a moment for words to come out of her mouth. “I just wanted to see if you could walk a foot over to the commode,” the physical therapist said.

When she showed up six weeks later for her new leg, she popped it on for a fitting and grabbed her walker.

“This will do me fine,” she said. “Josh, hand me my cane.” Her son complied, and his mom started walking. “Feels pretty good.”

That prosthetic leg weighed almost 10 pounds. Now, they have given her a new one that is only 5 pounds. And now it has a left foot, one that syncs with her right one. She is still in a lot of pain from the shell of the prosthesis wearing against her leg. Surgeons tell her that they will eventually have to do an above-knee amputation. She is actually looking forward to a knee that can bend 90 degrees. “It will be easier to get around, and less painful.”

Van Houten has returned to work on several different occasions and recently had to take another leave of absence because she developed an acoustic neuroma, a brain tumor, that was causing auditory hallucinations. She would hear whole conversations and turn around to find no one there.

One time, she heard a voice saying: “You need to place a bet on the No. 4 horse.” Cathedral bells rang for hours in her head. She began having double vision and vertigo. The COVID-19 pandemic hit, and she couldn’t get an appointment to figure out what was going on. Finally, her primary doctor sent her to an oncologist who did a brain scan and found the tumor and said that she needed to be operated on immediately. She underwent gamma knife radiosurgery in August, and she thinks that things are getting better.

She still hears fire engines in her head, and sounds as if she is at a party. But then she turns her attention to the things that she is good at doing. Cooking. Gardening. Building.

“I want to build a windmill and a solar generator,” she said, taking a visitor outside to show off her plans.

She has settled into her life and is finding joy in so many things she can still do. She cooks. She gardens. She makes plans for a world outside that is filled with friendship gardens and umbrella trees. She only does things she is good at.

“I look at what I can take on and then decide whether I can do it,” she said

At the time, the erratic driver had told the courts many different reasons for the accident. The district attorney felt that there was enough evidence to support that she was texting during that time and lost control of her vehicle. The district attorney wanted to indict her and make a case on the dangers of texting while driving. The case was going to trial and Van Houten was looking forward to giving a victim impact statement. Two weeks before the court date, the woman killed herself.

Van Houten was hoping that the woman would just apologize. She said that the woman knew the extent of the injuries.

That, she said, never happened.