ATV Accident Leaves Woman Hanging On By a Thread

Early Afternoon, Christmas Eve 2018. A woman is airlifted to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Trauma Center with multiple injuries. The worst being: “She had a very significant cut across her neck, basically ear to ear,” says Dr. Daniel Cox, the Trauma Medical Director at UAB.

52-year-old Diane Eubank had been giving a friend a ride on her ATV, when she lost control and plowed into a barbed wire fence. Her neck, while not broken, had taken the brunt of the crash.

“It’s kind of, in lay terms, called an internal decapitation, where the base of the skull and top of the spine, those connections are in-are not stable and can loosely move,” says Dr. Cox.

The friend, a foreign exchange student from Germany, was uninjured and had called 911. Thanks to the quick action of the first responders, Diane was alive, at least for now.

“The big concern was, ‘What is her neurologic function going to be?’” says Dr. Cox. “That injury pattern is associated with often having a very, you know, poor prognosis in terms of being able to have, you know, a normal life or-or even survive to get out of the hospital.”

Meanwhile, Diane’s daughter, Heather, who was with her stepdad, had gotten a call. It was Diane’s friend.

“He sounded frantic. But he was just like, ‘You need to get here now. You need to get here now, your mom’s been in an accident,’” says Heather. “And I was just like, ‘Please, like let her be okay. Let her be okay.’”

Heather’s cries to God would be echoed throughout the community. Family and friends gathered in the hospital, as word spread through social media. Diane’s close friend, Sheryl remembers.

“It was hard to know what to believe at that moment, just uh-uh wanted to know I could see her again,” says Sheryl.

About 5:00 p.m. Diane went into surgery where Orthopedic Surgeon, Dr. Steven Theiss, and his team worked to realign Diane’s spinal cord. The outlook was not promising.

“Will she move her arms and legs again? You know, will she be able to breathe on her own?” questions Dr. Theiss. “If the spinal cord is injured in that area at the very top of the neck, people’s breathing muscles don’t work because they’re paralyzed too. So, yeah, you know, she really could have had a devastating, essentially non-survivable spinal cord injury.” 

Dr. Theiss and his team operated throughout the evening. Even as people attended Christmas Eve services and spent time with loved ones, they set aside time to pray. After ten hours in surgery, Diane emerged from the OR. It was about 3:00 a.m. Christmas morning.

“I felt like everything was just going to fall apart,” says Heather. “And I did not want that. Like I wanted my mom to be here. I still wanted her to see me get married, like have kids, just be here for my life.”

Later on Christmas Day, the medical staff brought Diane out of sedation and gave her a test.

“So, we always have this question of, ‘How is the brain function going to be and what is the neurological function,’” says Dr. Cox.

They asked her...to wiggle her toes.

“And, lo and behold, you know, that was the first time we really knew that she had good neurologic function,” says Dr. Theiss.

Not only did she wiggle her toes, she kept wiggling them!

“Very encouraging after, you know, what was a very long and busy night that night,” says Dr. Cox. “Which was fantastic right, it was a Christmas miracle,” says Dr. Steven Theiss. “Of course, the answer is ‘By God’s grace.’”

“I’ve witnessed a miracle,” says Sheryl. “Uh, she-she is a walking miracle.”

“He is real. I mean, He’s real. I know God,” says Diane.

“He truly does work miracles,” says Heather.

After several weeks in ICU, Diane spent months in rehab, working to regain her strength so she could get back on her feet. “God always made me feel like I was at peace,” says Diane. “I had fight; I was like ‘I’m going to do this. I’m going to do this and then get out. I’m going home,’” says Diane. “And that kinda was my motivation. But I always felt a peace, just constant peace through this whole accident.”

Today, as Diane enjoys another Christmas with friends, family and a new grandson, she knows it was through the power of prayer that she’s alive, and able to live life to the fullest. 

“Grateful that we are here to spend many more Christmases together and build those memories,” says Heather.

“She’s closer to God, she relies on Him a lot more,” says Sheryl. “She tells everybody that He’s the one who healed her, and she gives Him all the credit, and she’ll claim that to the day she dies.”

Diane says God told her, “‘This gift is a way for you to share with people that I am here; I am real, and I’m there for everybody if they’d just take Me and want Me.’”