JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Jeanette Naschke enters an exam room at the urgent care clinic where she works to see her first patient of the day. The bubbly blue-eyed blonde greets her patient with a smile and chats for a few minutes. To see this physician assistant today one would never know she herself was a trauma patient who nearly died.
Naschke started her day like any other in May 2015. She loaded her 2- and 4-year-old boys into her SUV covering them with blankets for their drive to daycare before she headed off to work in New Braunfels, Texas.
"I came up over a hill on I-35 without knowing there was an incident right over the hill," she said. "There wasn't enough time for me to stop, so I rear-ended a car in front of me."
She knew if she hit the car straight on the boys would feel the full force of the impact. She made a split-second decision to turn the wheel, but by doing so, she received the brunt of the impact.
Shattered glass covered her. Naschke's legs were broken and pinned underneath the dash and the steering wheel broke her arm. Coming in and out of consciousness, she called out for her boys.
"I couldn't move enough to see them in the back seat and they didn't answer me," she said tentatively. "At that point, I thought I had injured them or much worse. Emotionally, and physically, I gave up."
What Naschke didn't know was her boys were fine, thanks to Charles Bunch, the varsity football defensive coordinator at New Braunfels High School, who got the boys out of the car to safety. Because the boys were covered with the blankets, they didn't get a scratch. Bunch also put out the fire in the car's engine and stayed with her until EMS arrived on the scene.
"I would not be here if it weren't for him," Naschke said thankfully. "He kept taking the boys' blankets and rubbing them on my face so I would keep smelling them and he kept talking about the boys to keep me alive. He reassured me they were OK. That's when my fight came back."
Other bystanders took care of the boys until her husband Daryl arrived at the accident scene.
"My oldest was trying to tell me what happened saying, 'I'm trying to talk to mommy but she won't answer. Is she going to be ok?' I told him she's going to be fine," Daryl said.
It took an hour and a half to get her out of the car. Naschke remembered hearing the emergency personnel say she was going to lose her leg.
They brought her to Brooke Army Medical Center because it was the nearest Level I Trauma Center. Naschke's injuries were extensive; she had severe lacerations, internal organ damage and multiple broken bones. By the time she arrived at BAMC she had lost a lot of blood. She required multiple blood transfusions and underwent more than 30 hours of surgery.
"I never really thought of [BAMC] as a place that would be a haven and hope for civilians, but since the accident I've found they take great care of people like me and others who need help," she said.
"I'm so thankful I was able to go there, because I really honestly feel that if I wasn't able to be a patient [at BAMC] I would have lost my leg. There is no doubt in my mind they saved my limb that day."
After her initial treatment at BAMC, Naschke moved to a rehabilitation hospital for six weeks then home to continue her physical therapy until she was strong enough to go to the Center for the Intrepid for rehabilitation.
The thought of going to the CFI was daunting, she explained. "I had to relearn to walk again; I had to relearn how to use my arm. It was very scary.
"I will never forget the first day my husband wheeled me into the CFI," Naschke said. "I checked in at the front desk, got in the elevator and rode up to the third floor. The doors opened and there were three patients there, all amputees, and they all welcomed me.
"I saw these men getting their lives back and I told myself right there at that moment, 'If they can do it, I can do it.'"
Naschke still rehabs a couple of days a week at the CFI and is in the "Return to Run Clinical Pathway," a rehabilitation program to help injured service members run again.
She credits the therapists at the CFI for her ability to walk again and have full use of her arm.
"Since being in the program I've lost my limp," she said. "If you didn't see my scars you probably wouldn't even know I had terrible injuries. It's truly a miracle."
Naschke is now able to work again and lead an active life with her family.
"The CFI has not only been fantastic for me physically, but what it's done for my emotional side and my strength and my character is more than I can even tell you," she said.
"I didn't want people to look at me and feel sorry for me, because I'm thankful that I went through it. It made me a better person."
She says being a patient has made her more empathetic to her own patients. It also strengthened her relationship with her husband and children.
"In a really weird way I'm so thankful this accident happened because it brought Daryl and I so much closer, because I know in really hard times he's not going anywhere. I can depend on him for the littlest of things and the biggest of things and he's going to be there."
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