ALERT saved Polson horsewoman's life

As the April 17 ALERT banquet approaches, Donna Perkins of Polson has a few butterflies.

“I’ve never gotten up and spoken in front of a crowd in my life,” she said.

But she couldn’t be happier about attending the annual benefit banquet that helps keep the helicopter and crew in the air, rescuing the critically ill or injured. Perkins counts herself as one of the 1,350 lives saved over 33 years by quick transport to a medical facility.

“The ambulance crew said I wouldn’t have made it another hour,” she said.

Perkins’ ordeal began on Oct. 31, 2009, when she and her husband, Marty, joined friends for a day of branding cattle at a ranch near Polson.

“We had our horses there,” she said. “It was cold, wet and windy.”

Perkins, 55, has been riding since she was 12 years old. She quickly saddled up her gelding Cooper and started cutting. She recalled seeing some cows and loose horses in the background when her horse suddenly spooked.

“He just started to buck,” she said. “I came down on the saddle horn.”

She felt a heavy blunt blow to her abdomen that wasn’t particularly painful. Immediately, she tried to get up but discovered something was seriously amiss.

“I couldn’t — everything was moving around down there,” Perkins said.

Luckily, several people at the event had cell phones to summon the ambulance from Polson. As Perkins lay on the ground, she recalls all the solemn faces looking down at her.

“I remember lying there shivering,” she said. “All the people had their coats on top of me.”

They tried to keep her talking as they waited for the Polson Ambulance to show up. It must have seemed an eternity for her friends.

They knew something that she didn’t. Perkins was hemorrhaging blood from internal damage at an alarming rate, triggering a call to ALERT for a life-saving flight to Kalispell.

Before the crisis was over, she required three transfusions to replace the blood she had lost.

“The ambulance crew just had time to get me on a body board when the helicopter arrived,” she said. “I was still awake, but I barely remember hearing the helicopter.”

Since the aircraft had room for only Perkins and the crew, her husband and one of her girlfriends jumped in a car to catch up with her at Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s emergency room. Medical staff stabilized her wounds and evaluated the damage with X-rays.

Imaging revealed that Perkins had broken her pelvis in three places and ruptured her bladder.

“They decided it was more than they could handle,” she said. “They sent me to Harborview’s (level 1) trauma center in Seattle.”

Perkins and her husband flew to Seattle aboard the Native Air fixed-wing aircraft that has served the medical center since 2004. By the next morning, she was in the operating room for the first of three surgeries to repair her extensive internal damage.

“I got a stainless steel plate in my pelvis and a 10-inch screw in my back,” she said. “They did the surgery on the first [of November] and I was discharged on the sixth. They were great at Harborview.”

Perkins said that family friends in Polson pitched in to provide meals and took shifts standing vigil by her bedside in the days after she returned home. She and her husband, who moved to Polson 13 years ago from Maine, were deeply moved by all the assistance.

“We know now what a great place we live in,” she said.

Perkins’ medical professionals advise her to expect a year of healing. She doesn’t knew yet if her riding days have ended but she holds no ill-will toward her horse Cooper.

She called the 5-year-old gelding the nicest horse she has ever owned. The couple shares their home at the base of the Mission Mountains with Cooper and four other steeds that form a big part of their recreational lives.

“We belong to the Back Country Horsemen,” she said. “We do a lot club activities in the summer.”

Perkins blames herself for the accident. She said she got in a hurry and didn’t warm up her horse before she saddled him and jumped aboard.

“When you cold pack, they’re more likely to buck,” she said.

 Like so many others, Perkins never imagined that she would someday find herself aboard the red ALERT aircraft so often seen flying across the sky. Although her ride remains a blur, she recalled the crew asking her to come back to see them when she got patched up.

“I’m tickled to get to go to the banquet and meet them all,” she said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com