Emily Foster Recovers, Thanks to Many

Emily Foster

 — by Margie Doyle —

Emily Foster, Orcas High School senior, is the first to say she’s one lucky girl.

Aside from the fact that she’s recovered amazingly from a hit and run accident on Eastsound’s Main Street, Emily feels fortunate and overwhelmingly grateful that she is a part of the family of Orcas Island.

Emily remembers the morning of Wednesday, April 8, ” feeling so happy, walking to therapy, getting my coffee, about to cross the street between Brown Bear Baking Company and Darvill’s Bookstore to meet my friend, and waiting for a car with teenagers to stop at the stop sign.

“I was already cautious, and noted there was a driver stopped on my left, in front of Cherry T’s. I stepped into street and made eye contact with that driver.” Then, Emily says, he accelerated into her and never stopped. “I remember being hit, remember screaming and seeing flecks of silvery darkness.”

Witnesses confirmed Emily’s account of the accident. She says she was screaming intensely “not because I was hit but because I felt it was intentional.”

(Benjamin Hanks has been charged with 2nd degree vehicular assault, which comes with 10 years and  a $20,000 fine. He pled not guilty to the charges and has made no statement.)

It was fortunate that the first person to reach Emily was a trained EMT, a tourist, (whose name she never learned).  Dr. Camille Fleming then arrived to give aid. Emily was trying to stay calm and to stand up, but when she caught sight of her housemate, who’d seen the whole incident from across the street, she started crying: “It really felt real.”

She was transported by ambulance to a helicopter and arrived at St. Joseph’s hospital in Bellingham, tense and in shock from the incident and the attempts to deliver pain medication intravenously. She says she wasn’t in pain until she left the hospital later that day, after her face had been scrubbed to remove the asphalt and gravel that had been imbedded in it. She first saw her face in a round ceiling mirror as she waited on a hospital gurney to get x-rays. “My face was covered in blood, and it was hard to see. It freaked me out. It got worse the day after with swelling, and even worse on the second and third day after.”

Six weeks later, the grit from the accident has worked itself out and her facial skin is as clear and unscarred as it was before April 8. “Now my face is pretty much completely healed, but body at its worst,” Emily says. In particular her knee remains swollen and she has pain from it.

She returned to school three weeks later, after the spring break, and resumed rehearsals for “Across the Universe,” and her duet singing with Celestine Jensen and the high school Theatre Arts class in “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

At first she was a little overwhelmed attending “Across the Universe” rehearsals, but then, she says, she “changed my attitude and used it as a distraction and just made it the positive focus in my life.”

“And I got so much support from the community — everyone has been so great. I feel like that was the reason I healed so quickly.”

She says Jeramie and Caleb Summers, with whom she lives, and is nanny to their children, “have been amazing support — the closest family I have. They opened the GoFundMe account, which helps with expenses like my knee brace and the loss of income from the days I wasn’t working.”

She also thanks Lynda and Chris White whom she lived with for a week and a half. “Lynda is so motherly and is helping me with all the business, legal, and insurance aspects.” She is grateful for the donated massages she has received from Anita Holladay, Christopher Evans, Debra Matrin, Vibba Golem and  LuAnn Pamatian.

“Even  strangers are so generous and good to me. Whenever I leave the house, people come up to me and ask how I’m doing.”

Emily Foster looking ahead

Emily came to Orcas last summer to visit Maddy White, a friend from early childhood.  She lived with her aunt Mandy Randolph for awhile. Emily says, “If this had happened at any other time in my life,  I don’t think I would have managed it. I haven’t had the easiest childhood, but since moving to Orcas, things have been working out great.

“I’m in such a good place and have the energy to know that I want to get back to that. It’s important for me to tell people what it’s been like.

“Key things happen and you can manage it because you’ve managed so far. You make adjustments in life. Like with my Senior project [which had been an intergenerational dinner], I had to make alterations because I can’t stand on my feet that long.

“Now I’m making a coloring book with flowers, which I didn’t have the time to sit and do before. But it’s something I can do by myself, and my time spent sitting and healing and is so good for me in relieving stress.”

After high school graduation, Emily’s summer plans are to continue to be a nanny and work at the Outlook Inn. Her work schedule has changed because of her need to be off her feet more. She’d  planned a cross-country train trip, but it has been postponed and she says, “I’ll just take things as they go.”

She understands island kids wanting to move off-island after graduation, but because she just moved here last summer, she wants “to stay at least a year and then see where I go.”  She envisions a performing arts education where she can write music and play guitar, but says “I love nannying.”

As she continues to heal and to plan, Emily says definitively of the accident, “Every possible good thing came out of it. She frequently responds to the remark, “Someone’s looking out for you, ” by saying, “Everyone’s looking out for me!

“That’s the most amazing thing.”

What’s amazing and inspiring is Emily Foster’s attitude of resiliency and spirit of gratitude.