Woman, 28, is paralyzed after being crushed by a piano in a freak accident
An Ohio woman was left paralyzed from the waist down after she was crushed by a grand piano that fell on her and severed her spine as she helped move it.
Danielle Drummond, 28, had just moved to Eugene, Oregon last month when she agreed to help a friend move the piano. She says that during the move the instrument slipped out of the friend's hands and severely injured her.
"She dropped like a whole upright grand piano on me, and it severed my spinal cord," Ms Drummond told 19NEWS in Cleveland. "Now, I'm paralyzed from the waist down."
Because she is new to Oregon, Ms Drummond has no family in the area and told the broadcaster that she was still searching for a permanent place to live.
Up until her accident, Ms Drummond had been living in a van with her dog, Lotus.
Her family back in Cleveland has set up a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign to help pay for her "future medical needs" and to potentially move her back home.
Ms Drummond doesn't know what that would look like — or even if she could make the trip.
“I don’t even know like how I would get home, let alone like how to transfer all the medical stuff, and I don’t feel like I’m able right now to do like that far of a car ride or a trip in an airplane,” she said.
She told her sister that she does not anticipate ever walking again.
"She has accepted the reality of her situation. But she has an amazing spirit and an overall positive outlook, focusing on what she can do," her sister, Rosie Hayne, wrote on the fundraiser page.
While Ms Drummond may have accepted that she isn't likely to walk again, she said she's worked hard to keep her spirits high.
“I’m trying to keep like in high spirits because I know this is my life now, but it’s hard,” she told 19NEWS. “As of right now, I need a lot more physical therapy. I need to rebuild my strength.”
Ms Drummond's T11 and T12 vertebrae were fractured by the piano, her sister revealed.
In addition to the physical therapy, she will likely also need to employ a home health aide, which is expensive.
On 1 May, Ms Hayne posted an update on her sister's condition, saying that she was "getting around really well in the hospital wheelchair" but also noted she still needed to find a permanent place to live once she left the hospital.
Ms Drummond said she will remain "hopeful" that advances in medicine will one day provide her a means to walk again.
