It was almost eight months ago, around 8 p.m. on April 8, and Crystal Wilson and her boyfriend, Patrick McGinness, had returned to the home on Garber Road she had just bought and moved into with her teenage son, Joe, two weeks earlier.
She had worked her two jobs that day — as a paramedic at Dayton’s Firehouse 18 on Smithville Road and as an instructor at the Miami Valley Career Technology Center on Hoke Road — and then she and Patrick had run a few early-evening errands.
In the morning, Crystal — who was hoping to move from her EMT job to one of the trucks — was scheduled to take the firefighter test in Dayton. To relax before bed, she decided to go out and sit in the hot tub that was perched a bit precariously on a narrow, elevated deck at the back of the house.
Although the sudden blast of wintry weather certainly didn’t fit the calendar, it was, she now says, “perfect weather to get into the hot tub.”
Patrick had opted to go to bed. A firefighter/EMT himself, he was proctoring the test the next morning and wanted to be well-rested.
“To unbuckle the hot tub cover I had to walk on the narrow wall and it was slippery and I slid off,” Crystal said. “I fell about 6 1/2 feet into the driveway. I attempted to land on my feet and when I did I must have hit perfectly to where it sort of snapped my spinal cord.”
To provide some visual context the other day, she set one of her fists atop the other and then jerked one sideways about an inch and a half to signify the shift that happened between her T-8 and T-9 thoracic vertebrae.
After her fall, she fell face-first and was lying there semi-conscious for maybe 10 minutes, aware, she said, of the severity of her injury, but able only to moan softly for help.
Although he didn’t hear her, Patrick eventually decided to join Crystal in the tub for a few minutes. But when he got outside, he didn’t see her and figured he must have missed her return to the house.
Finally, he discovered her lying in the drive. She tried to get up, could not and somehow rolled over onto her back. That’s when she no longer could feel her legs or feet.
An Air Force medic for six years before becoming a firefighter, Patrick went into focus mode. He got her a blanket, phoned 9-1-1 and then called trauma alert at Miami Valley Hospital.
Crystal’s work helping others paid a dividend that night. One of the paramedics who arrived to tend to her was a student she’d just taught at the CTC.
“At the hospital they ran a lot of tests and initially I was given a 40-percent chance of walking again,” Crystal said. “But when they ran more tests, it went to down to three percent and then they did the surgery.”
A cage was built around the injured vertebrae and she said she got two rods and several screws inserted on both sides of her spine.
She was not given any hope.
“After the surgery I was given a zero percent chance of walking again,” she said quietly. “The neurosurgeon said I’d never walk.”
As word of the injury spread, the hospital filled with her cheering section.
The 36-year-old Crystal has a big presence packed into that small, 5-foot-1 frame. She’s vivacious and caring and sometimes whimsical and that mix can be magnetic. Soon the waiting room overflowed with her own family, the folks from the firehouse and myriad friends, some going all the way back to her to her days as a prep softball star at Patterson Co-Op.
But even with all those people gathered around, she said she felt very alone.
“When I was in the hospital, I was severely depressed,” she said. “Everybody goes through that when they have a traumatic event that happens to them and for me, I thought my life was over. I thought that I was never going to be able to do anything again.
“And when I finally came home, the first two weeks were really bad. I didn’t want to do anything.”
She said she’d make her way to the high-ceilinged family room at the back of the house, sit in her wheelchair and stare out the big windows at the trees in the distance.
“I’d just look out and cry,” she said quietly. “But the more I sat there, the more it began to sink in about all the lives I’ve touched along the way.”
She thought about her son and Patrick and the kinship of the firehouse and another reality settled in:
“I was reminded just how many people were pulling for me and I knew I had to do my best. Everything in life doesn’t go as you planned and you can either dwell on it or try to make the most of it.
“I had dedicated my life to helping people. Why should I change that now?”
She realized she could help others and most importantly, herself, too:
“My personal goal became to walk again. And I’d do everything I could to make that happen.
“I had to remind myself that I’d never quit before. And I wasn’t going to now.
“I’m not a quitter.”
Inspired by dad
Crystal grew up on Irwin Street in Dayton’s East End and after her sports success at Patterson, Tiffin University offered her a partial scholarship. She said she had to decline because her parents didn’t have the money to pick up the rest of the tab.
She worked for the Montgomery County adult and juvenile probation offices and then at a dermatology lab. Realizing she wanted something else, she remembered her dad telling her how he’d nearly died in a fire when he was a kid.
Just as he had been saved, she wanted to save others. She went to school to become a firefighter and then worked six years as a firefighter/EMT in Moraine.
Four years ago she joined Dayton’s Firehouse 18 as an EMT.
She began to teach the lessons of her job at the CTC and she often picked up overtime assignments working as a paramedic at Hollywood Dayton Raceway, where a rescue crew is required by law during each live racing program.
Her effervescent presence rubbed off on some of the drivers, trainers and racino personnel. Not only did they like her, but they especially appreciated what she and other EMTs did.
Over the years, several of the drivers — including such top sulky men as Josh Sutton, Dan Noble, Chris Page and Jeremy Smith — have been transported by medical crews after crashes and spills at tracks around the nation.
So last Christmas when Crystal and her compatriots brought up the Firefighters Local 136 annual Christmas From the Firehouse campaign and the Toys for Tots drive for the Dayton-area’s needy kids, the harness drivers jumped on board and not only provided toys and gift certificates, but agreed to chip in the purses they would compete for in the first annual Buckeyes Versus Hoosiers Drivers Challenge.
A six-race event, it pits a team of the top five drivers from Dayton Raceway against the top five from Hoosier Park, each squad amassing points from the finishes of its drivers.
The campaign was a huge success last year. After loading up the medic unit with toys from the drivers, Crystal then helped deliver those presents to families and escorted other families on Christmas shopping sprees with the money the drivers donated.
Before finally being forced to give up her position because of her rehab schedule, Crystal served as the chairman of this year’s Toys for Tots campaign, which again is teaming up with Hollywood Dayton Raceway and especially the drivers competing in next Saturday night’s second rendition of the Buckeyes Versus Hoosiers Challenge.
‘A mission to walk’
That “not a quitter” mantra has fueled Crystal since her accident.
She does therapy sessions twice a week at Miami Valley Hospital while wearing special KFO leg braces that enable her — with much effort and focus — to use her hips to facilitate a walking motion.
“We’ve built a set of parallel bars here at home so she can work out, too,” Patrick said.
And a physical therapist who is a member of the congregation at their church, The First Heavy Metal Church of Christ — where Crystal’s can-do approach has become an inspiration to many — volunteers to work with her at home.
Patrick said they have gotten some added hope recently:
“Initially they thought the injury was a complete sever, but it turns out that the spinal cord was crushed and pinched. There’s still some flow and that allows her to do what she does.
“I can go touch her leg and it will come off the ground, but then she can’t reproduce it. If you put your hands on the soles of her feet, her toes sometimes wiggle.”
Crystal nodded: “I’m on a mission to walk and I’ve done a lot of research and I am trying different things.”
She flew to Panama for a non-FDA-approved therapy where she said she had “500 million stem cells injected into my injury area through an IV.”
She stayed there a month and said she regained some feeling:
“I was paralyzed from just above the navel down. Now I’ve got feeling to the mid region of my buttocks and in some part of my groin.”
The procedure cost $32,700, which wiped out her savings and required her to take out a loan.
“My therapist and my rehab doctor tell me all the time there’s no way I should be this far along seven or eight months after my injury,” she said.
Yet, while he looks for any medical help, she isn’t always comfortable with people now helping in daily life.
She did appreciate her fellow firefighters who built a wheelchair ramp leading into the house and she does need Patrick to do things like lift her into bed each night, but she’s refused to have the whole house made wheelchair accessible. And she won’t use a handicapped parking sticker on her vehicle, which she drives with hand controls.
“I figure there’s some 80-year-old person who needs it more than me,” she said. “I have wheels. I can come from the back of the parking lot.”
While she finally took a medical retirement from the fire department two weeks ago, she still teaches at the CTC and she’s taking classes at Sinclair Community College with hopes of one day getting a psychology degree and possibly even going on to medical school.
And then there was Joe’s Military Ball at Northmont High School a couple of weeks ago. He’s a sophomore in ROTC there, so she and Patrick served as chaperones.
Just as he used to do every day when Crystal went off to the firehouse to work, her 16-year-old son now tells her:
“Mom, you are my hero.”
Drivers to donate
In a twist of unfortunate irony, the Christmas drive that Crystal spear-headed last holiday season and was the chairwoman of this year now will be helping her.
While the horsemen and casino patrons at Hollywood Dayton Raceway will again provide toys for children this year — collection bins will be set up in the casino next Friday and Saturday — the 10 drivers competing in Saturday’s six-race Buckeyes Versus Hoosiers challenge have all agreed to donate their winnings to Crystal for her medical expenses.
“The (EMTs) are here for us when get messed us,” said Josh Sutton, Dayton’s leading driver this season. “They really look out for us.
“We know Crystal from her working here and dealing with us and it’s just a sad thing. So if we can help somebody we know, especially somebody like her, it makes it even more special for us.”
Ohio Harness Horsemen’s Association track rep Brett Merkle agreed: “It’s our turn to help repay Crystal with a donation to help with her rehabilitation costs.”
The news of the drivers’ donations caught Crystal a bit off guard and, as her eyes brimmed over again, she shook her head:
“I’m just so blessed.”
That sentiment was especially evident the other morning when she finally went to Firehouse 18 to clean out her lockers.
“We have been meaning to do this for weeks, but she just didn’t want to do it,” Patrick said soon after they got back home.
Crystal, who had gotten all dolled up for trip — from her multiple earrings and French manicure to her long black leather boots — said it hadn’t been easy saying goodbye:
“I cried as soon as I pulled in the parking lot.”
Once back with her firehouse pals, she endured some of the old ribbing and shared some of the new gossip and, through it all, felt the same enduring camaraderie.
She cleaned out her three lockers (“you’re only supposed to have one,” Patrick said, shaking his head), one of which was filled with all the Elf on a Shelf and other Christmas decorations she used to fill the firehouse each December.
“There were a lot of uniforms, too,” she said. “If you go out on a call and get all messy, you have to get cleaned up and change and put yourself back together.”
When she finally headed to the door something happened that brought her to tears again as she recounted the scene back home.
“Before I left, every single one of them hugged me and told me they loved me,” she said quietly. “And they all said, ‘Keep fighting…Don’t give up.’”
After quietly pondering that parting, she nodded and whispered:
“Never.
“I’m not a quitter.”
About the Author