Healdsburg man rebounds from tragic accident

A long fall down a Fitch Mountain ravine in 2013 left Joel Billman paralyzed from the waist down, but with the support of friends and family, the Healdsburg man is making a remarkable recovery. On June 14 he is set to participate in the Fitch Mountain Footrace, participating in the 3K division with friends and supporters who promise to “walk and roll with Joel.”

Billman and his wife Nance have lived in Healdsburg since 2011, but just three days before the accident they had moved up to Fitch Mountain. On Oct. 16, he was taking a break from the move to hike the area around his new home. In hindsight, he realizes he wasn’t being careful enough.

“There was an open space near a ravine,” said Billman, 52. “I reached up for a handhold, it broke, and I fell backward about 60 feet.”

He blacked out, and when he regained consciousness realized that his legs felt “liquidy” and he couldn’t move. Billman said it took about 10 seconds to realize he was paralyzed, but he remained calm, just 1,000 feet from neighbors who might be able to help.

“The sun was shining, it was warm, it was a nice day to take a break from moving,” he said. Fortunately, he had his phone and could call his wife, who was working at the Alexander Valley Vineyards tasting room. He told her, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

“This has been a joke between us, from that old commercial,” Nance Billman said. She waited for the punchline, but “he said, ‘No, I mean it. I think I’m paralyzed.’”

She said she kept him on the line as she made “the fastest trip ever” up Fitch Mountain,” trying to pinpoint his location so she could call 911.

Healdsburg Fire Marshall Linda Collister organized rescuers, and Fitch Mountain neighbors came out in full force to console Nance while they waited for his rescue.

“He was about 200 feet across a steep ravine,” said Healdsburg Fire Chief Steve Adams. “When they got to him, he was in severe pain, and because of the extent of his injuries and the terrain, they knew they needed a helicopter.”

H-30, the California Highway Patrol helicopter, responded from Sacramento. On the ground, crews responded from Healdsburg, Geyserville and CalFire units, and Billman was loaded into a Stokes litter for a long-line rescue. At Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa, the first news was grave. X-rays showed signs that his spinal cord may have been severed, so they airlifted him to Stanford for surgery to fuse seven vertebrae. During a second surgery, a carbon fiber vertebra was inserted at the site of the fracture.

Billman also had broken two ribs on each side and had blood in his lungs from the impact of the fall. Surgeons discussed the prognosis and therapy that would follow at Oakland Kaiser and the Vallejo Spinal and Stroke Rehabilitation Center.

He was home before Thanksgiving but faced the challenge of mounting bills and learning to live as a paraplegic.

“I have numbness, tingling and tremors,” Billman said. “My legs are sometimes cold, sometimes hot. They feel different on the inside and on the outside.” For the first year, he also had relentless pain.

While Billman had lived in California in the 1980s and 1990s and had taken a job as cook at Healdsburg’s Chalkboard restaurant, they had few close friends in their new hometown. He now felt isolated by his injuries.

Back in Wisconsin, his sister Amy Billman found a Towns story about Neighbors Network of Healdsburg and called founder Gail Jonas, a Healdsburg attorney and activist. Jonas went to work finding help. She rounded up visitors and firefighters, who volunteered to drive him to appointments. Healdsburg Running Company offered workout support and co-sponsored an April fundraiser with NuyaNutrition and the Oakville Grocery. On June 9, Chalkboard held another fundraiser to help offset the family’s copays and medical equipment.

Meanwhile, Billman has been hard at work doing rehab therapy. He cross trains and is learning to walk by using the parallel bars and a walker. During his last aqua therapy session at Parkpoint Health Club, he was able to walk without float rings, although outside of the water his legs still tremble. Dr. Hari Lakshmanan, his physician, said he is nearly ready to move from wheelchair to forearm crutches.

“What once was automatic, I have to think about,” Billman said. “I have to talk to my muscles to make them move.”

The family has moved from Fitch Mountain to a southeast Healdsburg subdivision so Billman can get out on his own, but the family continues to value the support of their community.

“We tried doing it alone as a family for a year,” said Nance Billman. “The hardest thing in the world is to ask for help.”

Billman has developed a new respect for life’s gifts. “You never know when everything you take for granted will be transformed,” he said.

Contact Healdsburg Towns Correspondent Ann Carranza at Healdsburg.Towns@gmail.com.