editor="Webstyle4"
moduleid="Nicole Smart Fund 1 (Project)\index_heading2.xws" border="0">
Nicole Smart |
|
Westford Academy 2001
|
The Graduation
Congratulations! Nicole Smart Graduated From Colby-Sawyer College On Saturday May 14th, 2005!
The Interview - Rebecca Smart interview on The Jordan Rich Show - WBZ Radio 1030AM
Rebecca, Nicole's mother, was interviewed on the Jordan Rich Show on WBZ Radio 1030AM Friday February 11, 2005. Click on any of the links below to hear the interview
"Clip 1" "Clip 2" "Clip 3" "Clip 4" "Clip 5"
The Story - courtesy Andrea Bushee of The Derry News
LONDONDERRY - It took less than 10 minutes one day last November for Nicole Smart's life to change forever.
When Nicole, 22, left her home at Winding Pond Road, she was an independent college student on her way to work at a part-time job at Walgreens in Westford, Mass. Less than 10 minutes later, she had fractured her spine and collarbone after clipping the curb at Exit 4 onto Interstate 93 south. Her car rolled several times and went over the embankment. She was pinned, conscious, under her car. Nicole asked a man who stopped to call her home.
Her mother, Rebecca Smart, said she knew right away when she and her fiance, Donald Crump, arrived minutes later at the accident scene. Nicole said to her, "I can't move my legs at all." Smart's premonition was right. Doctors have given Nicole a 1 percent chance to walk again, she said.
State police and the Londonderry and Derry fire departments used hydraulic tools to extract Nicole from the car. She was rushed to Elliot Hospital in Manchester, and later transferred to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic in Hanover. Since then, she has endured two spinal surgeries and doctors have removed bone from her hip to add in to her spine.
She is still in pain from the surgery and relies on a wheelchair and the help of others to get around. She can no longer drive a car, go to work, or move freely as she once did. She also has to have help to take a shower, to move from room to room, or to go outside when she is at home.
Smart said her family has been in shock since the Nov. 28 accident. "Sometimes we are OK," she said, but other times it is hard to get through a conversation without crying. "It was one minute ... everything changed," she said. Even the family's yellow Labrador retriever, Tanner, is not the same, she said. When Nicole is home, he just sits for long periods in front of her wheelchair.
But while the accident changed Nicole's physical situation, her independent spirit has remained. Nicole has always been independent, Smart said. She did not plan to live in their home for long, and had hoped to receive a bachelor's degree at Colby-Sawyer College this May, and afterward get her master's degree in psychology. Nicole returned to school last week to finish her last semester, said Smart. Nicole relies on her boyfriend and fellow student, Jacob Meyer, who helps her get around the campus.
Rebecca said she is nervous about whether her daughter will get through the semester. "It's way too fast for a kid to do what she is trying to do," she said. That is why Smart, who did not ask her daughter to participate in an interview for this story because she said it would be too hard for her, wants to give Nicole a space of her own where she can feel independent. The condominium where her family lives has narrow staircases and carpeting that make it hard to maneuver her wheelchair.
After Nicole's first day home after the accident, her family realized she could never live there comfortably again. They had contractors look at the home to determine what modifications could make the two-bedroom condominium more accessible, but they were told their best bet would be to move.
Smart and Crump have bought a condominium in the same Century Village complex where they live. The new home is bigger and can give Nicole the room she needs when she come home from college, Smart said. However, in order for Nicole to be able to move around in the new house, the couple needs thousands of dollars for renovations and to add an elevator to the home. The elevator will cost $24,000, and the renovations will cost more than $9,000. Both of those estimates are low.
Construction and a second mortgage are not the only financial burdens the family have taken on after the accident. They are also faced with costs such as shower chairs, ramp rentals and other items to help Nicole. A shower chair, said Rebecca, costs about $250, and the ramp they are renting so that Nicole can get inside of the condo where they live now, costs $250 a month to rent.
Smart and Crump have four children between them, all 19 or older. They had planned to stay in the two-bedroom condominium long-term, but after the accident decided they needed to make a space for Nicole to live and feel as comfortable and independent as possible.
But the situation is something Rebecca and Crump were not prepared to handle financially. They have applied for grants and have gone to the state to see whether any aid is available for Nicole, but they have received no clear answer on whether they will receive any aid at all. "It's sad," Smart said. "I don't know what people do if they don't have family to help them."
Rebecca said what she feels right now is frustrated that she has worked for so long and paid into a system that is not returning anything to her daughter when she needs it. "What if she didn't have us?" she asked. "Where would she be?"
Friends and family have been supportive, she said, and have begun to set up fund-raisers to help the family. Roger Kirk and his business partner, Dan Bourrett, have offered to organize a fund-raiser to help the family. Kirk and Bourrett, both disc jockeys, have participated in organizing benefits before, Kirk said. They plan to have the details of the event worked out within a week or so.
They are also establishing a Web site, www.nicolesmart.com for more information.
The family has set up a fund for financial donations and are also looking for donated labor to help with renovation costs.
Donations can be made at Nicole M. Smart Fund, c/o Sovereign Bank, Westford office branch, 160 Littleton Road Westford, Mass., 01886.
The Story - courtesy Dave Perry of The Lowell Sun
Around 7:30 the morning of Nov. 28, Nicole Smart's life changed forever.
She was entering Interstate 93 south from Route 102 in Londonderry, N.H., bound for her part-time job at a Walgreen's drugstore in Westford. She thinks the car she was driving struck a curb on the right side of the entrance ramp. Trying to control the vehicle, she careened down an embankment and into a gully. The car rolled over, and Nicole was pinned beneath it. Rescue workers extracted her, but the damage was done. Two vertebra broken, a snapped spinal cord. Nicole was paralyzed from her waist down.
Nicole, a 22-year-old, 2001 Westford Academy graduate who had been studying psychology at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, N.H., made it home New Year's Eve after two operations and weeks in New Hampshire hospitals and a rehabilitation center. The family Nicole, her 19-year-old brother, Peter, and her mother, Rebecca Smart who moved from Westford to Londonderry in 2001, is trying to adjust to a new life. Not to mention the new expenses.
Since the accident the Smarts have purchased a new condominium in the same complex, to help accommodate Nicole¹s new needs and the wheelchair to which she is confined. But needed renovations to the home have been estimated at around $35,000.
Questions? Comments? You can e-mail us at: info@NicoleSmart.com
If you would like to donate an item to be used for the March 5th Fund Raising event, please send them to:
The Nicole M. Smart Fund 57 Winding Pond Rd Londonderry, NH 03053-3371
All other donations may be made to:
Nicole M.Smart Fund c/o Sovereign Bank 160 Littleton Road Westford, MA 01886
Questions? Comments? You can e-mail us at: info@NicoleSmart.com
 moduleid="Nicole Smart Fund 1 (Project)\index_subheading.xws"
border="0"> |