The LAST last post

Amy wrote a letter to the editor of The Challis Messenger and it was published this week:

Guest Commentary - The miracle is in the people


BY AMY HANSEN

I am writing to share the story of a miracle with everyone in your town. On May 1, I received a phone call telling me that my mother and father had been in a rollover car accident near Challis, just south of the Cottonwood Creek campground.
The list of my mother's injuries was terrifying: broken neck, back, arm and leg, plus a shattered thumb.

The Challis paramedics, including Trever, Luanne, Vicki, Biddie and Aletia (to the best of our knowledge), raced out to the accident site, and my mom was put on a backboard and airlifted to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls. EMT Vicki called several times to check on my mother's condition after Mom got to the hospital.

My mom's accident left her in very poor spirits, but not because of her own serious injuries. One of her two beloved cats, Rita, had gone missing. Deputy Levi Maydole saw Rita run off into the dense underbrush at the accident site.

During my mom's four-week hospital stay, we drove out to Challis several times to look for Rita and put up posters, but with no luck.

Challis Animal Control officer John Runer said he would look for Rita, and neighbors near the crash site put out food. Two of the EMTs (Trever and Luanne or Vicki, we think) promised to keep going back to the site to look for Rita. KSRA radio announced her plight in "Lost and Found." Eddie and his daughter went out and looked for Rita, and they put us in contact with the Cottonwood Creek campground host, Duane Wilson. Deputy Maydole said he'd drive by the site, and Mary, the dispatcher at the Sheriff's Office, pledged to help spread the word.

Four weeks passed, during which my mother survived four surgeries and started to breathe on her own again. She returned to Roseville, California, via air ambulance.

Then a journalist friend of my mother's heard about the missing cat and contacted The Challis Messenger, which published a story about Rita. A few days later, my father received a call from a trucker who reported seeing a gray cat. My dad bought a live cat trap at my mom's insistence, and family friends on a road trip dropped it off with Duane.

Duane put the trap out for a couple of nights, and one morning, Rita was inside. Duane took her to Lone Pine, where she got lots of love and care until a ride home could be arranged. You can imagine the hysterical crying, screaming, phone calling and general craziness that ensued when Duane called with the news, almost six weeks after the accident. Family and friends were ecstatic about the "miracle cat."

The miracle was not the survival of the cat. Nor was it the survival of my mother, as I believe that was in the hands of a higher power.

The miracle in this story is you, the people of Challis. My parents were complete strangers, and every person we encountered through our ordeal treated us like next-door neighbors, or in some cases, like family, taking time to do something for us out of real generosity, not for personal gain.

A perfect example is when my father called Duane and asked for his address so he could send the reward for finding Rita. Duane said, "Now Brian, I can't tell you that." We ended up sending the reward money to Lone Pine.

In this busy, often self-centered world, Good Samaritans have become rare. To have found a whole town of them is a miracle. I hope you each realize what a wonderful gift you've given to our family, and to my personal faith in human character.

You have my eternal gratitude. Amy Hansen lives in Syracuse, New York