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<\/p>\nIt’s a small world! A few days ago I was delighted to see\u00a0a\u00a0familiar face\u00a0splashed all over the national news and social media.<\/p>\n
But first, a little background.<\/p>\n
Regular readers will remember that just over a year ago I made an emergency trip to Orlando, Florida to be with my daughter Shannon who had been severely injured (traumatic brain injury) in a fall in her home. For 11 days I almost lived at the hospital as Shannon’s life hung by a thread. But\u00a0late one afternoon as Shannon’s husband Rick, their son (my grandson) Ryan and I left the hospital we decided to visit the Audubon Center for Birds of Prey in nearby Maitland for a temporary diversion that was much-needed by all three of us.<\/p>\n
However, our timing could have been better because the center was about to close for the day. So we spent about half an hour touring the (very impressive) facility\u00a0but just before they closed (on an impulse)\u00a0I asked to see\u00a0Rehabilitation Supervisor Diana Flynt.\u00a0My purpose was just to touch bases with her – because of the bird rescues I’ve been involved in, to see if she knew some of the\u00a0rehab folks I know out west (she did) and to let her know how much I admire the work they do.<\/p>\n
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What a gracious lady! I’m sure that because of us they were late closing the facility. Diana gave us a mini guided tour and even took the time to bring out their famous education Bald Eagle named Page for a close inspection by all three of us. She and Page even posed for a photo with us (when I saw this image I hated my\u00a0big belly\u00a0so much I’ve lost significant weight since then…). When Diana heard the story about Shannon she was hugely sympathetic to the plight of our entire family. She told us about one of their own staff members who had suffered a brain injury similar to Shannon’s but had eventually\u00a0recovered almost completely. That was a story Rick, Ryan and I dearly\u00a0needed to hear at the time.<\/p>\n
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Ok, fast-forward to two days ago. Two adult Bald Eagles became locked in aerial combat\u00a0over Orlando and fell to the ground where they ended up in a storm drain but still locked in combat. Eventually one of the eagles let go and flew away\u00a0but that pushed the other injured bird further into the drain where it had to be rescued. And sure enough – its rescuer was Diana Flynt!<\/p>\n
The rescue was big news locally and all over the country. I\u00a0first saw it on Facebook and then on a national news station.\u00a0Here’s a link to one of the stories of the rescue<\/a> I watched. After seeing the photo above you’ll recognize Diana toward the end of the video.<\/p>\n I can’t imagine a world without folks like Diana. They work endless hours with little or no monetary compensation (many of them are purely volunteers) trying to save wildlife in distress. It’s very often\u00a0a heartbreaking labor of love because many of their patients have to be euthanized but there are also significant numbers of success stories where the patient is eventually released back into the wild (or in the case of raptors used as education birds if\u00a0release isn’t feasible).\u00a0Mia and I will\u00a0be forever grateful to the Montana Raptor Resource Center for nursing the injured\u00a0Barn Owl I cut out of barbed wire<\/a> back to health so it could eventually be released again and to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah for saving the\u00a0juvenile Short-eared Owl with a badly injured wing<\/a> (that I also had to cut out of barbed wire) so it could be used as an education bird. Another rehab center I have great respect for is the Cascades Raptor Center in Eugene, Oregon but there are many others.<\/p>\n Rehabbers rock!<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n Note: Since this post is marginally about Shannon’s accident and many readers have followed her recovery for so long I thought I’d include a final<\/strong> report on her progress.<\/em><\/p>\n The news is all good. In recent weeks her improvement has been dramatic. Her physical recovery is complete and her memory and cognition issues have all but disappeared, though she still has some minor difficulties retrieving names for some common objects. Her effervescent, cheerful personality has fully returned and so have her confidence and\u00a0fierce independence. Several days ago she called\u00a0just to tell me about\u00a0her excitement because “I finally feel like my old self again!”. It’s been a long and difficult struggle for the entire family but you can imagine how that phone call buoyed me up!<\/em><\/p>\n Not bad for someone who was injured so badly that on the night of the accident her family was told by ER\u00a0doctors\u00a0that she had “zero chance of survival”.\u00a0Two days\u00a0later when I got off the plane in Orlando I was\u00a0as prepared as I could possibly be for the fact that she might already be dead. She was five days in the hospital before a surgeon finally told us that “Shannon will survive” though it was obvious that he wasn’t optimistic about her eventual mental recovery.<\/em><\/p>\n