Janine Faloni, was able to return to her Windsor home for
Christmas with her husband, Duane, daughter, Kylee, 10, and son, Jacob 6,
after a Nov. 12, 2009, accident in the Raley's shopping center in Windsor in which a SUV crushed her into a concrete post.
JOHN BURGESS / The Press Democrat
But after enduring six weeks of hospitalization, separation from her two children, a half-dozen surgeries and days and nights of intense pain, Faloni had no intention of missing out on a family tradition.
Her return home from the hospital on Christmas Eve was just in time to celebrate a family Christmas and daughter Kylee's 10th birthday the same day, and it came as an unexpected, special gift.
“I'm kind of ready for anything,” she said, her mood upbeat during an interview in her Windsor home. “There's got to be something good on the other side.”
A trip to her local post office and grocery store Nov. 12 ended in a freak accident when she was crushed against a concrete support post by an SUV that jumped a curb and pinned her.
Her left foot and lower left leg were amputated. It will be at least another month before she can put weight on her right leg, still healing from surgical repair of femoral fractures and held together with metal plates and screws.
Her left leg, reconstructed below the knee with grafted muscle and skin, must heal completely before the search for a proper prosthesis can begin. She faces months of healing and rehabilitation as she learns to walk again.
Seated in a wheelchair, surrounded by family and the comforts of home, Faloni, 36, appeared relaxed and content, giving little hint of her traumatic ordeal.
“I can't wait to get up and go,” Faloni said. “To me, in my mind, I'm going to be up again and walking and doing my thing. That's my goal.”
The remaining part of her left leg is taking a long time to heal after problems with circulation and tissue damage. Adjusting to a prosthetic will be challenging, and astronomical medical bills, insurance and liability remain to be dealt with.
But in some ways, the couple has traveled this path before, and they've learned to take what comes and expect miracles.
Their son Jacob, who turns 7 this weekcq if story runs 01/04, was born 16 weeks prematurely and has a host of special needs as a result. He has cerebral palsy, compromised vision, glaucoma and is autistic. He has medical problems that require frequent trips to the hospital.
But he's also a joyful, loving first-grader who has overcome many of the worst-case scenarios with which his parents were presented when they were told soon after his birth he would never walk or see.
His parents said his struggle to survive his premature arrival and the effort needed to help him come into his own as a young child has given them the emotional strength and faith to handle their new challenges.
But they acknowledge there have been difficult days since Janine Faloni's accident.
Duane Faloni, a landscaper, had come home for lunch when his wife dashed out to the post office on Lakewood Drive around mid-morning Nov. 12.
She was returning to her car when it crossed her mind that she needed to buy some bread and could get it at Raley's in the same shopping center.
She had just stepped onto the sidewalk and was walking in front of a support post when a Windsor man nosing a GMC Yukon into a parking spot a few feet away accidentally hit the gas, pinning Faloni against the concrete column.
Investigators said Conrado Fernandez, 80, mistook the accelerator for the brake, but they could find no grounds for citing him or pursuing criminal charges, Windsor Police Chief Steve Freitas said.
Fernandez's license was seized and referred to the Department of Motor Vehicles for reappraisal, Freitas said. The DMV said it since has been suspended.
At the moment of impact, Faloni said she heard something pop in her lower back and felt sure she'd been paralyzed by the impact.
Then she prayed that her life would be spared so she could be with her children.
She recalls extreme pain, being on the ground and looking up as dozens of people and emergency personnel surrounded her. She remembers being put in an ambulance and either passing out or being put under.
Her husband was notified moments after the accident and raced the few blocks from the family's home on a cul-de-sac to the shopping center.
“I was thinking, ‘If it's at a shopping center, how bad can it be?'
” he recalled.
He soon found out, and he said those images have been difficult to purge from his mind.
When Janine Faloni awoke two days later at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, she was glad to be alive, then shocked to discover she was not paralyzed.
Her husband told her about her legs, but she just thought, “Well, I'm alive.”
They both said they feel extremely lucky that despite Janine Faloni's 5-foot-2 stature, the SUV did not damage her vital organs.
“This impacts her for the rest of her life,” said family friend Steve Merical, a Santa Rosa police officer and a former pastor at Faloni's church. “But if there's anyone who can work through it and get through it, it's Janine. She's a phenomenal person.”
Before the accident, Faloni already was a busy mom — teaching Sunday school at First Baptist Church of Windsor; serving on the board at Windsor Christian Academy, which her daughter attends; volunteering for special causes; and providing care to Kylee and Jacob.
When she was injured, the groups she serves were among the many who reached out to help her and her family, including both of her children's schools, their church, Duane's co-workers and members of the Windsor and Rincon Valley firefighting departments. Janine Faloni's brother, Rob Bisordi, is a captain with the Rincon Valley Fire Protection District.
Friends and supporters provided food, child care, financial gifts and a variety of other types of help, many of them working to organize fundraisers for a trust fund established to help the family cover medical costs.
The couple has plumbed their religious faith and accepted with gratitude the outpouring of love and support.
“Somebody provided us a Christmas tree,” Duane Faloni said. “I'm still not sure who did it.”
“I'm just so thankful,” his wife said of the help from by people they know and don't know. “It's just a huge blessing.”
It's sustained the family through multiple setbacks as doctors at Memorial and then UC San Francisco Medical Center set about repairing Janine's legs.
Although her left leg was amputated the day of the accident and her right leg repaired the next, there were five more surgeries still to come within less than six weeks for the left leg, including a nearly 14-hour reconstruction surgery with grafted tissue from four other parts of her body and an emergency operation two days later to restore blood flow when a grafted vein failed to take.
There were many days of agonizing pain, nausea, phantom pain from the missing leg, even post-surgery migraines causing vomiting, she said.
Questions arose about her liver function, fluid in her lungs and whether it might be necessary to amputate more of her leg above the knee.
Her children were allowed to visit only twice, in part because of concerns about swine flu.
A blog kept friends and supporters apprised of Faloni's condition and allowed her to read supportive messages, which proved especially comforting “in the middle of the night when I was feeling the loneliest,” she said.
When Jacob and Kylee asked whether their mother would make it home for Christmas, Faloni tried not to encourage them. Friends and family took the same approach with her — even her doctor suggesting she would miss it by a few days.
But in what she and her family feel was a minor miracle, the doctor decided she was healing well enough to go home as Christmas neared.
Arrangements for her discharge, hospital bed and insurance approvals also went more smoothly than usual, and on Christmas Eve, as friends scurried to prepare the house and complete decorations for Christmas, Duane Faloni brought Janine home from UCSF.
She said the unity and support she's received from the community is a worthy product of what she is enduring, and she hopes to use her experience for good one day.
For now, she said she's “not looking too far into the future.”
“I'm just kind of enjoying the moment and taking it day by day.”
You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@
<p>It took more effort and help for Janine Faloni to board her neighbor's minivan for the annual Christmas night tour of holiday lights.</p><p>But after enduring six weeks of hospitalization, separation from her two children, a half-dozen surgeries and days and nights of intense pain, Faloni had no intention of missing out on a family tradition.</p><p>Her return home from the hospital on Christmas Eve was just in time to celebrate a family Christmas and daughter Kylee's 10th birthday the same day, and it came as an unexpected, special gift.</p><p>“I'm kind of ready for anything,” she said, her mood upbeat during an interview in her Windsor home. “There's got to be something good on the other side.”</p><p>A trip to her local post office and grocery store Nov. 12 ended in a freak accident when she was crushed against a concrete support post by an SUV that jumped a curb and pinned her.</p><p>Her left foot and lower left leg were amputated. <NO1><NO>It will be at least another month before she can put weight on her right leg, still healing from surgical repair of femoral fractures and held together with metal plates and screws.</p><p>Her left leg, reconstructed below the knee with grafted muscle and skin, must heal completely before the search for a proper prosthesis can begin. She faces months of healing and rehabilitation as she learns to walk again.</p><p><NO1><NO>Seated in a wheelchair, surrounded by family and the comforts of home, Faloni, 36, appeared relaxed and content, giving little hint of her traumatic ordeal.</p><p><NO1><NO>“I can't wait to get up and go,” Faloni said. “To me, in my mind, I'm going to be up again and walking and doing my thing. That's my goal.”</p><p><NO1><NO><NO1><NO><NO1><NO>The remaining part of her left leg is taking a long time to heal after problems with circulation and tissue damage. Adjusting to a <NO1><NO>prosthetic will be challenging, and astronomical medical bills, insurance and liability remain to be dealt with.</p><p><NO1><NO>But in some ways, the couple has traveled this path before, and they've learned to take what comes and expect miracles.</p><p>Their son Jacob, who turns 7 this week<NO1>cq if story runs 01/04<NO>, was born 16 weeks prematurely and has a host of special needs as a result. He has cerebral palsy, compromised vision, glaucoma and is<NO1><NO> autistic. He has medical problems that require frequent trips to the hospital.</p><p>But he's also a joyful, loving first-grader who <NO1><NO>has overcome many of the worst-case scenarios with which his parents were presented when they were told soon after his birth he would never walk or see.</p><p><NO1><NO><NO1><NO><NO1><NO>His parents said his struggle to survive his premature arrival and the effort needed to help him come into his own as a young child has given them the emotional strength and faith to handle their new challenges.</p><p>But they acknowledge there have been difficult days since Janine Faloni's accident.</p><p>Duane Faloni, a landscaper, had come home for lunch when his wife dashed out to the post office on Lakewood Drive around mid-morning Nov. 12. </p><p>She was returning to her car when it crossed her mind that she needed to buy some bread and could get it at Raley's in the same shopping center.</p><p>She had just stepped onto the sidewalk and was walking in front of a support post when a Windsor man nosing a GMC Yukon into a parking spot a few feet away <NO1><NO>accidentally hit the gas, pinning Faloni against the concrete column.</p><p><NO1><NO>Investigators said Conrado Fernandez, 80,<NO1><NO> mistook the accelerator for the brake, but they could find no grounds for citing him or pursuing criminal charges, Windsor Police Chief Steve Freitas said.</p><p>Fernandez's license was seized and referred to the Department of Motor Vehicles for reappraisal, Freitas said. The DMV said it since has been suspended.</p><p>At the moment of impact, Faloni said she heard something pop in her lower back and felt sure she'd been paralyzed by the impact.</p><p>Then she prayed that her life would be spared so she could be with her children.</p><p>She recalls extreme pain, being on the ground and looking up as dozens of people and emergency personnel surrounded her. She remembers being put in an ambulance and either passing out or being put under.</p><p>Her husband was notified moments after the accident and raced the few blocks from the family's home on a cul-de-sac to the shopping center.</p><p>“I was thinking, ‘If it's at a shopping center, how bad can it be?'<TH>” he recalled.</p><p>He soon found out, and he said those images have been difficult to purge from his mind.<NO1><NO></p><p>When Janine Faloni awoke two days later at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, she was glad to be alive, then shocked to discover she was not paralyzed.</p><p>Her husband told her about her legs, but she just thought, “Well, I'm alive.”</p><p>They both said they feel extremely lucky that despite Janine Faloni's 5-foot-2 stature, the SUV did not damage her vital organs.</p><p>“This impacts her for the rest of her life,” said family friend Steve Merical, a Santa Rosa police officer and a former <NO1><NO>pastor at Faloni's church. “But if there's anyone who can work through it and get through it, it's Janine. She's a phenomenal person.”</p><p>Before the accident, Faloni already was a busy mom — teaching Sunday school at First Baptist Church of Windsor; serving on the board at Windsor Christian Academy, which her daughter attends; volunteering for special causes; and providing care to Kylee and Jacob.</p><p>When she was injured, the groups she serves were among the many who reached out to help her and her family, including both of her children's schools, their church, Duane's co-workers and members of the Windsor and Rincon Valley firefighting departments. Janine Faloni's brother, Rob Bisordi, is a captain with the Rincon Valley Fire Protection District.</p><p>Friends and supporters provided food, child care, financial gifts and a variety of other types of help, many of them working to organize fundraisers for a trust fund established to help the family cover medical costs.</p><p>The couple has plumbed their religious faith and accepted with gratitude the outpouring of love and support.</p><p>“Somebody provided us a Christmas tree,” Duane Faloni said. “I'm still not sure who did it.”</p><p>“I'm just so thankful,” his wife said of the help from by people they know and don't know. “It's just a huge blessing.”</p><p><NO1><NO><NO1><NO><NO1><NO><NO1><NO><NO1><NO><NO1><NO>It's sustained the family through multiple setbacks as doctors at Memorial and then UC San Francisco Medical Center set about repairing Janine's legs.</p><p>Although her left leg was amputated the day of the accident and her right leg repaired the next, there were five more surgeries still to come within less than six weeks for the left leg, including a nearly 14-hour reconstruction surgery with grafted tissue from four other parts of her body and an emergency operation two days later to restore blood flow when a grafted vein failed to take.</p><p>There were many days of agonizing pain, nausea, phantom pain from the missing leg, even post-surgery migraines causing vomiting, she said.</p><p><NO1><NO>Questions arose about her liver function, fluid in her lungs and whether it might be necessary to amputate more of her leg above the knee.</p><p>Her children were allowed to visit only twice, in part because of concerns about swine flu.</p><p><NO1><NO><NO1><NO>A blog kept friends and supporters apprised of Faloni's condition and allowed her to read supportive messages, which proved especially comforting “in the middle of the night when I was feeling the loneliest,” she said.</p><p>When Jacob and Kylee asked whether their mother would make it home for Christmas, Faloni tried not to encourage them. Friends and family took the same approach with her — even her doctor suggesting she would miss it by a few days.</p><p>But in what she and her family feel was a minor miracle, the doctor decided she was healing well enough to go home as Christmas neared. </p><p>Arrangements for her discharge, hospital bed and insurance approvals also went more smoothly than usual, and on Christmas Eve, as friends scurried to prepare the house and complete decorations for Christmas, Duane Faloni brought Janine home from UCSF.</p><p>She said the unity and support she's received from the community is a worthy product of what she is enduring, and she hopes to use her experience for good one day.</p><p>For now, she said she's “not looking too far into the future.”</p><p>“I'm just kind of enjoying the moment and taking it day by day.”</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@<QA0></p><p>pressdemocrat.com.</p><p><NO1></p>