VCU news

By Leha Byrd

On July 22, Keith Vincent was waiting for rafts and rafters to pass on the James River so he could take pictures. Vincent, a 25-year veteran of the Chesterfield Police Department, takes pictures part time for River City Adventures and Riverside Outfitters. But instead of rafts on the third drop in the river’s Pipeline Rapids, he saw a woman walking on the rocks, then wading in the water—then suddenly disappearing beneath the water.

“She was in a spot that can be a little dangerous, but it’s not what we would call a ‘keeper,’ Vincent said, adding that the phrase means a hole that keeps people underwater. “I thought, ‘Oh she will pop back up.’ But, she didn’t.”

I thought, ‘Oh she will pop back up.’ But, she didn’t.

Jennifer Taylor was being held down under the rapids. A frequent swimmer, she had been in her element, free swimming as she had done several times before. However, a swiftly moving undercurrent made this particular swim nearly deadly. Onlookers estimate Taylor was underwater for at least seven to nine minutes before she was brought to the surface and the shoreline by Patrick Ferramosca, an instructor for River City Adventures. He was in an inflatable kayak on the water giving a guided tour when Vincent and others alerted him from shore that Taylor was in trouble.

“People on the side were screaming there was an emergency and pointed me in the direction toward where she went down. I heard people say, ‘I just saw her face,’” he said. “She was about 2 feet underwater. I grabbed her, grabbed the boat and started kicking and paddling us back to shore. I carried her to the shoreline and started CPR on her chest until fire and rescue could get there. I never expected to see her alive again.”

But Taylor, 37, was still alive and was transported to Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. Medical officials said there was evidence her brain suffered oxygen deprivation, and she experienced several medical complications including kidney injury, pneumonia and a long wean from the ventilator. Still, a little more than a month after the accident, Taylor was well enough to leave the hospital. To date, she is a little unsteady on her feet, has memory loss and muscle discomfort. But having her home for the holidays trumps those troubles, her parents said.

“Memory issues are miniscule,” said Ed Taylor, Jennifer’s father. “She’s with us. It totally blows our mind. We’re so blessed and so thankful to everyone, from the EMT who picked her up to the off-duty police officer who saw her to VCU. I couldn’t praise VCU enough. Not just for how they treated Jennifer, but how they treated us.”

Her family attributes robust rehabilitation, therapy and medical staff who became like family to her survival and steady recovery.

“When we left the hospital they talked to us, and showed and told us what to do to help her," said Ed Taylor. “With the physical aspect, we walk intensively and she has a mini bicycle wheel she uses every day and light weights to help with her hand movements.”

Staff at VCU remember the severity of Taylor’s condition when she arrived in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, where she was transported after treatment in the acute care hospital.

“When she was evaluated she required max assistance to total assistance to perform self-care tasks. She was presented with a multitude of deficits like poor balance, poor attention to task, significant confusion, poor safety awareness and judgment,” said Kimberly Damon, a VCU occupational therapist who worked with Taylor.

However, Damon remembers a completely different patient leaving the hospital.

As she improved she became a cheerleader for other patients on the unit.

“She was walking and was also able to participate in leisure tasks like playing pool and games with her family. She was very friendly, high energy and very social,” Damon said. “As she improved she became a cheerleader for other patients on the unit. Family and friends stated this was very typical of her. She had a very supportive family and network of friends. This is always very beneficial in the rehabilitation process.”

Initially, Jennifer Taylor struggled cognitively as well, but she made steady gains.

“Once she began intensive daily therapies on our unit, the basic progress she had been making during her acute care stay began to build momentum. We were quickly able to remove the tracheostomy tube as she made progress with speech therapy, allowing her to give voice to more complex thought,” said Ricard Kunz, M.D., director of the Disorders of Consciousness Program in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. “Her ability to use language and communicate improved, as did her attention, reasoning and ability to perform some basic academic skills. Recovery from any sort of brain injury is a highly individualized process.”

“Despite the severity of her injury and initial presentation to the hospital, Jennifer had several good things going for her, including being very healthy and active before her accident, being willing to work hard, having an involved and supportive family, and having a great sense of humor.”

Like VCU medical professionals, others familiar with Jennifer Taylor’s accident recognize the ordeal as a perfect storm of good fortune, considering the circumstances.

“If I wasn’t facing the river, [or if I was] tying my shoelaces or checking my phone, I wouldn’t have seen her,” Vincent said. “I just happened to be hanging out, looking for the rafts. If one piece of the puzzle didn’t fall into place, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

For the past three months, Taylor has lived with her parents in their home outside Fredericksburg. The youngest of five girls, she is thankful she can spend the holidays with her family, she said. She has no memory of the accident, only that she woke up in the hospital. She has little memory of the VCU Health medical team who helped her in the hospital.

Yet she’s grateful to them.

“When you come into the hospital you don’t know what you’re going to get,” she said. “I was fortunate I had very kind, caring staff. When I got out of the hospital, everything was still cloudy. I can’t testify to everything, but anytime I was awake, they were nice.”

The former waitress and field hockey player said she’s had to adjust to a more sedentary lifestyle. She plays cards and puts together puzzles with her parents to keep her mind active. However, Taylor said she is not swayed from again enjoying one of her favorite pastimes: swimming.

“It was a freak accident,” she said. “It hasn’t deterred me. I just won’t go down [in the water] by myself anymore. Nobody should go down by themselves. There are currents that can take you under.”

 

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