By Per Peterson
If you’re a student at Tracy Area High School, don’t try to give your principal a high-five when school resumes in a couple weeks. She won’t reciprocate.
“I have to be really careful with the shoulder, not to let people bump it,” Kathy Vondracek said, a little more than two months removed from a fall at her home that resulted in two broken wrists and a broken shoulder.
The accident happened on June 9.
“We had just taken a nice break for lunch and were back at it, going full-bore,” Vondracek said, recalling the moment leading up to her accident that happened when she, along with her husband and son were ripping out drywall of her 1915 mail-order home.
The drywall was fastened to the studs with nails one inch away from each other, making it very difficult to rip it down. She was standing on a 3-foot stool, pulling hard on the Sheetrock when, to her surprise, it became free from the stud.
“It came when I didn’t expect it to come, and I fell backwards,” she said. “I just remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to hit my back on the newel post of our open stairway.’ So I tried to lean this way, which is probably why this shoulder’s broken. It could’ve been a lot worse.”
Three days passed before Vondracek could get a consult and shoulder surgery. She underwent surgery on her wrists two days after that (June 14) and returned home the next day. She said her pain level was pretty high.
For more on this article, see this week’s Headlight-Herald.