Auntie Bon in the News!
Published September 19 2009, Duluth News Tribune
After car accident, Duluth woman says, ‘It’s a miracle I’m alive’
Everything feels different for the Duluth’s Bonnie Dressen since a traumatic car accident in June put her in a coma. Her injuries were severe and perhaps should have taken her life. “It’s really a miracle that I’m alive,” she said. “Now I accept nothing as ordinary.”
By: Sarah Horner, Duluth News Tribune
Bonnie Dressen has always enjoyed kayaking, but now the experience of slipping her boat into Pequaywan Lake feels almost spiritual.
“I am doing it almost daily,” Dressen, 61, said. “It is the closest I am to God.”
Everything feels different for the Duluth woman since a traumatic car accident in June put her in a coma. Her injuries were severe and perhaps should have taken her life.
“It’s really a miracle that I’m alive,” she said. “Now I accept nothing as ordinary.”
The miracle, Dressen said, is that three random strangers equipped with just the right tools were there to help her. One was Jennifer Helland, a registered nurse in the Neurological Trauma Unit at St. Mary’s Medical Center who happened to be driving behind the car that hit Dressen. Another was Jeffrey Beck, the driver behind Dressen who knew that first responder A.J. Marshall was working at the nearby Lakewood One Stop and ran to get him.
“It was like everyone I needed was somehow right there,” Dressen said.
Despite having two young daughters in her car, Helland pulled over to help. When she noticed Dressen was having trouble breathing, the nurse realigned her airway. Then Marshall hooked her up to the oxygen supply he brought from the convenience store.
They waited 20 minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
“That would have been too long,” said Dressen, a nurse herself. “I really don’t think I would be alive today if Jennifer hadn’t opened up my airway; and if A.J.
hadn’t gotten that oxygen to my brain, I’d probably be brain-dead.”
Instead, Dressen made it to the hospital, where she remained in a coma for five days. The accident caused trauma to her head and created a blood clot and swelling in her brain. Her left eye was swollen shut and an ankle and rib were broken. She remained in the hospital for two weeks and underwent four surgeries.
When she was allowed to leave she suffered from walking amnesia and needed to attend daily rehabilitation.
It wasn’t until August that Dressen started feeling like herself again.
“It was a stinky thing for a long time, but it could have killed me if it weren’t for those people,” Dressen said. “I owe them thanks from the absolute bottom of my heart. I feel they saved my life. That was courage and empathy and goodness for them to do what they did.”
She got to thank Marshall with a hug Thursday afternoon.
“I love seeing her the way she is, so healthy and up and walking around,” said Marshall, a first responder with the Normanna Fire Department. “It’s pretty impressive that she’s healed so quickly.”
Marshall said he doesn’t think his efforts that day were heroic.
“I was just doing my job,” he said. “I was glad I was able to help someone out and make a friend out of the deal.”
Helland saw Dressen in the hospital immediately after the accident and later received a bouquet of roses from Dressen. She said it’s overwhelming to be credited with saving her life.
“Who knows what would have happened,” Helland said. “I am just glad that the other gentleman and I were there that day. I have heard that [Dressen] is a very vibrant gal, and I’m just glad she’s OK.”
Their modesty doesn’t change who they are to Dressen, though.
“They are heroes,” she said.
Dressen’s husband, Doug, agrees. When asked what it meant to have his wife healthy and home again after coming so close to losing her, he had trouble speaking.
“You don’t put that in words,” he said. “You make movies of that.”
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