Approximately 14,900 a year (one an hour) deaths occur because of falls. Falling down stairs, ladders, manholes, and what could have been junior, Alyssa Salvato’s case, mountains is the second most common accidental cause of death. She defeated the odds and is able to tell her riveting story to us all. 

 Salvato,  her friend, junior, Ashley Finchum, and Finchum’s father were tearing up the terrain while four wheeling in South Fork, Colorado on July 27th 2011.  It was about sixty degrees, ideal for a day on the mountains. The girls were zooming past stationary trees and cows. They felt the engine of the four-wheelers purr from under them, letting their ATV eat from the palm of their hands. The drivers’ every movement was their four-wheelers’ command.  Then, the three of them took a sharp turn, which the Finchum’s did with no problem, but Alyssa’s tire blew out and the steering column failed.  She was thrown off, landing on a rock in a shallow river nearby. 

 Alyssa fell about fifteen feet from the road, while Ashley and her dad, on the other side of the curve, wondered where was.

 “Once the curve ended, my dad realized that Alyssa wasn’t there,” Finchum said. “We waited for about forty seconds before deciding to go back.  We found her on the ground, crying for help.”

 About three minutes later a man emerging from an old blue van came to their assistance.

 “The man helped my dad carry Alyssa back up to the road, where three other cars had stopped to see if Alyssa was ok,” Finchum said.

 The man and Finchum’s dad placed Alyssa into the Jeep Rubicon of one of the people who stopped. Those people took Salvato and the Finchums into town in order to find cell phone reception. They never saw the Amish man again. The black jeep drove towards town for about twenty minutes; they got a hold of the emergency line, and waited on the side of the road for an ambulance.  Ashley went in the ambulance with Alyssa while the rescuers from the mountain and Mr. Finchum followed close behind in the jeep.

“During the ambulance ride, I kept asking the same questions over and over again like, “Am I paralyzed?” I also said things like, “I’m going to a [bad] college because I can’t play soccer.”

 Alyssa stayed in a hospital in Del Norte, Colorado where doctors discovered that she had a broken rib, a punctured lung, a bruised sternum, a concussion, and a partially torn ACL. They put her on morphine and vicodin, because they couldn’t do much else for the type of injuries she had.

 “[When] I woke for the first time [since I arrived at the hospital], I didn’t know where I was or why I was here,” she said. “I tried moving my arms but I felt sharp pains, my arms and legs felt really heavy.”                

Her parents drove from Amarillo, arriving that next morning to pick her up from the hospital to take her to her grandfather’s cabin nearby.  After an overnight there, they headed for Amarillo.  She says she was in a profound amount of pain on the way home. But she had loving friends and family waiting for her there to cheer her up.

“Everyone was really shocked,” she said. “I got a lot of special treatment [from my friends and family], my sister, Ashlyn cleaned my room and I got a lot of get well cards from people.” 

Alyssa is taking physical therapy until mid October; meanwhile, she has to refrain from playing soccer, which she was highly involved in before the accident.

“I feel so helpless,” Alyssa said. “I can’t run, jump, or anything, I’m just ready to be back and playing again.”       

She rides her bike about five to eight miles a day as another way of exercise to make up for the time she would be playing soccer.  She has also had time to place her attention on other things.

“Since this accident, I’ve been able to focus on other things like my friends and homework,” Alyssa said. “I’ve learned that soccer isn’t really all that important compared to them. This is still an upsetting story considering I can’t play soccer, but [with all the things that happened] it’s going to be a funny story to tell [in the future].”

Alyssa said she plans to make a full recovery in time for the soccer season.  In fact, she said she will return an improved player.

“I think [this accident] has made me a better player, because I’m more determined to go further than comfort.”