Dana Waldbaum

It’s Never Too Late to Break Yourself Out of the Box 

It was early morning, and the streets were still quiet as Dana Waldbaum walked to the gym for her regular morning workout. Suddenly, a car came racing up behind her, going over 70 miles an hour, and swerved toward her, hitting Dana so hard that the neighbor across the street mistook the sound for a gunshot. 

Splayed out on the sidewalk where she had landed headfirst, bleeding and broken, Dana somehow managed to access her phone and call 911. For four and a half long minutes she remained on that call, drifting in and out of consciousness, determined to stay alive long enough for help to arrive. My girls, she thought over and over again. Her daughters, Alexa and Gabrielle, were only seven and nine. They needed her; she had to get back to them. She forced herself to take an excruciating breath. And then another. 

Meanwhile, the man responsible for the terrible incident, a man Dana would later learn was high on cocaine, had flipped his car, gotten out, and attempted to escape on foot. A nearby security guard saw him and alerted the police, who caught him and discovered this was far from his first offense. He had a long history of DUIs and assaults on women. Dana was only his latest victim. 

Once the emergency team arrived, they lifted Dana’s crumpled body onto a stretcher and brought her to the ER, where doctors began to assess the full extent of her injuries: fractured skull, a broken tooth, head lacerations, broken ribs, a ruptured liver, multiple leg breaks and myriad injuries that would have seemed more serious had the others not been so bad. A long and difficult recovery lay ahead, and it was unclear how much of her former self Dana would be able to recover. 

A Denver native, Dana had been the epitome of a student-athlete and had excelled in both arenas, winning the state championship in tennis and going on to play Division 1 at Brown. After an early career in advertising, she followed her love of animals to veterinary school, and as she completed her training in Boston, she met the man she would marry, started a family, and returned to Denver. Through it all, staying in peak physical condition remained a core part of Dana’s identity. She ran, lifted weights, hiked, and skied. She was strong, both physically and mentally, strengths she would harness to recover from the extreme severity of her injuries. 

Upon her return home from the hospital, with the unwavering support of her husband, daughters, parents and community, Dana began the arduous process of healing. Unable to get up and down stairs, her family set up a makeshift rehabilitation center in their basement, where Dana would spend the next three months, going from 24-hour care to trading her wheelchair (lovingly bedazzled by her young daughters) for a walker to eventually relying on crutches. She was, she says, a healing machine, far exceeding the doctor’s predictions of what was possible. Even so, there were times when the pain and emotional trauma were overwhelming. 

For weeks, when she looked in the mirror, Dana did not recognize her own reflection. Would she ever be able to do those simple tasks so many people took for granted, like packing a lunch for her kids or walking them to a playdate? Moreover, could she stand another day of this excruciating pain? In those darkest moments, anger and despair would take hold and she would think, I can’t take another day of this. But then, she would summon the strength to go on.

Dana did more than go on. Today, seven years since the hit and run, Dana is back to most of her old routine. While she still suffers complications from her injuries, she has been able to get back to much of her old routine: intense morning workouts and an active lifestyle, fully engaged parenting, and work in her veterinary clinic. 

So often, Dana says, people get put in a box. If you stay there, you get stuck. Dana refused to stay in her box and that allowed her to get back to being the woman she was before someone else’s terrible choices put it all in jeopardy: an indomitable example to her daughters of what is possible, even against impossible odds. 

It is never too late to break yourself out of the box.