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Athabasca woman saves her kids by diving under falling branch

Athabasca mother Jessica Dicks let her instinct guide her as her body went into overdrive, leaping into the path of a falling tree as it threatened to land on a tent where her children were inside playing.
Jessica Dicks recovers in the hospital after blocking a falling tree with her body to protect her three children.
Jessica Dicks recovers in the hospital after blocking a falling tree with her body to protect her three children.

Athabasca mother Jessica Dicks let her instinct guide her as her body went into overdrive, leaping into the path of a falling tree as it threatened to land on a tent where her children were inside playing.

It was a split decision that likely saved the 27-year-old-mother’s kids, but left her paralyzed from the chest down.

“It hit me on top of the head and the doctors are assuming that it just crushed me downwards, because my T5 in my spine is a burst fracture and then I had also a small fracture in my C5 in my neck,” Dicks said in an interview with the Advocate. “My ribs are broken. My sternum is crushed. The cut on my head took 20 staples to close. My teeth are all broken, and I’m paralyzed from the chest down.”

Dicks was out camping on Lawrence Lake on July 3 with her family when the incident happened. She doesn’t remember anything after hearing the tree crack and break about eight feet from the top.

For three weeks, Dicks was kept in an induced coma at the University of Alberta Hospital’s intensive care neurology ward.

According to a fundraiser website for Dicks established by her uncle Monty Major, it took 11 days for her to stabilize enough for neurosurgeons to perform surgery. On July 14, they installed rods and screws to support the T5 vertebrae and help alleviate her pain.

“I was so unstable and I was on a breathing machine that was, for a period of time, doing all of my breathing for me,” Dicks said. “I had a central line that was like nine different IVs going into me. I would go from being OK to destabilizing. My oxygen would go down or my heart rate would shoot up or something. For the first couple weeks it was touch and go. The doctors didn’t know if I was going to make it.”

She said when she finally awoke, it took several days for her body to eliminate the drugs from her system. The sobering reality of her situation partnered with the symptoms of withdrawal were “horrible,” she said. And that was the easy part.

Now, Dicks has entered into the rehabilitation phase of her recovery. She regularly works with a physiotherapist.

“I’m just day by day doing physio,” she said. “My top, my arms and the top little bit of my chest are getting stronger, I’m breathing on my own and I’m eating on my own. I’ve made significant progress in the last three weeks.”

However, she expects to remain in hospital care for at least four more months, unable to live independently at this point.

“They don’t want to keep me here any longer than they (have to) because this is high intensity and I’m not really considered high intensity any more, I’m more into rehab now,” she said. “They’re trying to transfer me to Athabasca but it’s whether Athabasca has the equipment and the medication to handle what I need.”

After landing in Athabasca or Westlock for a time, Dicks is waitlisted to enter the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton.

National attention

It wasn’t until five weeks after the accident that Dicks saw her three daughters, aged six, four and 10 months.

“When I first saw the baby I broke down, and she didn’t really recognise me for the first little bit, so that was very emotionally trying,” she said. “It took a few visits for her to want to come to me and to laugh with me and stuff. My two older girls were elated to see me.”

Dicks’ story has been picked up by CBC and The Canadian Press, and has spread like wildfire across the country.

“I’m starting to get it now, why other people think that I’m a hero,” she said. “I think that I just did what I had to do as a mom. But, I guess in the eyes of outsiders I’m a hero. My daughter calls me a hero, too, though, so it’s weird to be called a hero. But I understand why people think that, because I would think that, too, if I was the one reading about it.”

It has also helped in the effort to raise funds to help support Dicks and her family at this time.

“A lot of (my family) have been spending countless time and money to be here with me, and the rest of them come and visit when they can,” she said. “I know that my spouse and my mother-in-law and my aunty and my mom, especially – it was hard for them to see me like this.

“It was emotional and stressful and a financial burden trying to be here, away from home and hotels and food and stuff like that.”

The day before CBC broadcast her story, a fundraising page showed her family had received around $3,000 in support. As of publication date, the fundraiser was almost at its $50,000 goal.

In her own community of Athabasca, one fundraiser in early August failed to draw much attention. However, a second event, will be hosted at Buy-Low Foods on Aug. 26 from 11 a.m.

“Athabasca never ceases to amaze me,” she said. “Whenever there’s somebody in the community that needs help, the community comes together and it’s me that needs help this time, which is not something I planned for but I’m overwhelmed by the support that I’ve been getting. It definitely helps. It gives me a huge motivation that I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Dicks hopes that other people, especially parents, can learn the lesson she did the hard way.

“I just want people to be reminded to check their surroundings, especially when they have children,” she said. “You never know if there’s a broken tree or something. You just never know.”

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