A Year Later:
with one goal accomplished, Sarah Hyatt looks ahead to more

With the help of her brother Daniel, Sarah Hyatt walks across the stage to receive her diploma at West Henderson High School.

Saturday, June 23, marked one year since Sarah Lynn Hyatt was involved in an accident that drastically changed her last year of high school.

Sarah is the daughter of Charlotte and Jim Hyatt of Mills River, North Carolina; and the granddaughter of Rosalyn and the late Carl Adams of Washington-Wilkes.

On June 23, 2006, Sarah was on her way to a summer job close to her home when her small pick-up truck skidded on a rain-slick mountain road. Her spine was severely injured and doctors told her she would never walk again. Physical therapists in Atlanta said she would never rise from her wheelchair.

Setting her goal as graduation day 2007 at West Henderson (N.C.) High School, Sarah told her family and friends that she would walk across the stage to receive her high school diploma.

In the weeks after the accident, the diagnosis changed and doctors were a bit more optimistic. Prior to the accident Sarah had been a basketball, volleyball, and track star at her school, and her determination to reach goals was well-known to both family and friends.

Sarah Hyatt, who was severely injured in an accident in June 2006 and who doctors thought would never walk again, now works out up and down stairs with the help of braces on her legs.

Sarah spent six weeks in Atlanta learning to live life in a wheelchair, and even then she was determined that she would one day walk. Bruises on the spinal column had affected the nerves that carry impulses between the brain and Sarah's lower body. Recently she has started regaining feeling up and down her right leg.

During this year she spent several afternoons each week working with the staff at Hendersonville Sports Medicine, including athletic trainers Kyle Barker and Laura Husak. Dwayne Durham, the director of Hendersonville Sports Medicine, credits Husak's "tough love" approach with helping Sarah to come to where she is today.

With her trainer, Laura Husak, standing by, Sarah put her wheelchair aside, and with Laura's finger through a belt loop on Sarah's blue jeans, helping to keep balance, she walked 10 feet, then 15; and finally 30 feet towards a staircase in the corner. When she came to the stairs she got rid of the crutches and leaned against the handrails and rose step by step to the top.

When she got to the top, she said, "I love standing up here. I feel tall." And she laughs.

The closer it came to graduation in June, the harder Sarah worked, and the more determined she was to walk to receive her diploma.

When graduation night arrived, the bleachers inside the high school gym were packed. There were 234 graduates, and as it came time for her name to be called, Sarah rolled her wheelchair closer to the stage, following the line of graduates. Close by was her younger brother Daniel. The crowd couldn't see the leg braces beneath her pants and graduation gown. Sarah stood and then walked onto the raised platform using a cane in one hand and her brother's hand in the other.

At the beginning of the program, the principal had urged the audience to hold applause until the end so that all the graduates' names could be heard. But the rule didn't apply when Sarah received her diploma. She received a standing ovation from everybody in attendance.

Sarah's next goal? To study accounting at Western Carolina University in the fall; and to take her test for a special driver's license so she can drive her new car -- a black 2006 Ford Fusion that will be outfittedwith hand controls.

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