Cardinals fan hurt in July returns, persisting in recovery

WHEN SANDRA Wacker came to Philadelphia this summer to watch her favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals, play the Phillies, she left an important piece of herself behind - a portion of her skull.

The piece was taken out by doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to allow for swelling of her brain after Wacker, 36, and her friend Cindy Grassi, 53, both teachers from Missouri, were hit by an allegedly intoxicated driver who ran a red light as they crossed Broad Street near Curtin on July 10.

Two days later, Grassi was taken off life support.

Twenty days passed before Wacker was able to fly from HUP on a medevac plane to continue her recovery from a traumatic brain injury, a fractured leg and a bruised lung at St. John's Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, and then at an affiliated rehabilitation center, until Sept. 5.

With her mother, Linda, and her sister, Jennifer Taylor, by her side, Wacker returned to Philadelphia for follow-up surgery to replace the missing part of her skull on Oct. 31.

"My head piece is back," she said in the lobby of a Center City hotel a few days after the procedure. "I asked to see it because I wanted to make sure it was mine and not somebody's else's.

"I asked the nurse in the operating room how long it was. She didn't know. I was like 'Great! Can someone get me a ruler?' " she added jokingly.

Wacker's mother and sister said that the return of her sarcasm was one of the most satisfying aspects of her recovery.

"Oh, she's got it back big time!" Taylor said.

But for Wacker, who now uses a walker to get around and whose sheared dark hair almost hides the 69 silver staples gleaming underneath, there is one thing she will never get back - herself.

"I think that person's gone," she said.

Wacker, who now lives back at home with her parents and will require continued speech, occupational and physical therapy, remembers the woman she was and bits and pieces of the final trip she made as that person.

She remembers coming to Philadelphia with Grassi, a fellow avid Cardinals fan with whom she planned a pilgrimage to a different ballpark each year.

"I remember going to the Betsy Ross House and running like Rocky up the Art Museum steps," she said. "And I remember going to the ballpark.

"But the doctors say I probably won't remember the accident," she said. "That's a good thing."

Wacker thought she and Grassi were being safe on their trip to the city. They had asked a co-worker and native Philadelphian at Mark Twain Elementary School in Brentwood, Mo., where the dangerous areas were.

Never could they have fathomed that danger would strike them crossing the street.

"I'm the biggest rule-stickler. I don't jaywalk - ever!" Wacker said. "When I first came around, my dad would tell me, 'You were walking the right way. The light was for you. It wasn't your fault.' "

Wacker's memory started to return about four weeks after the accident, when she was in in-patient rehabilitation.

As she started to get more and more visitors, her mother said, the first question the family was always asked was, "Does she know about Cindy?"

"We didn't want to tell her until she was ready," Linda Wacker said. "But then, we started to get afraid that she would see it on TV or hear it from a friend."

So one day, with the help of a psychological professional, the family told the recovering Wacker that her friend, co-worker, traveling partner, exercise buddy and fellow "picky-eater" lunch companion had died.

Wacker, who speaks vibrantly about everything from baseball to rehabilitation, could only muster the strength to utter just four solemn words about her fallen friend.

"It was a shock," she said.

When Wacker recently returned to HUP, to those health-care professionals who nursed her through the first three weeks, to those whose faces she doesn't remember but whose words, thoughts and pictures were compiled into a keepsake book by her family, she left them in awe.

"They were all blown away at how well she is doing," her mother said. "It was just as beneficial for me to see their reactions to her as it was for them to see our miracle."

Wacker said that because of her job, she was able to relate to the excitement HUP professionals expressed about her recovery.

"As a teacher, it's so much fun to see kids learn, to watch them get it," she said. "I can see and understand now why the nurses here get so excited to see you come so far."

But what really gets Wacker excited is what brought her to this city in the first place - baseball.

Since her team didn't make it into the World Series, and her second-choice team, the Boston Red Sox, lost to the Tampa Bay Rays, she opted to root for the Rays - "because I was like 'Ewwww!' " she said of the Phillies, tongue-in-cheek.

Although Wacker's connection to this city may be far from pleasant, she said she is willing to give the Phillies a chance.

"I have to do my research on the players here," she said. "This Victorino guy, he's from Hawaii and he's all over the news. I have to find out about him."

One of the things Wacker enjoys most about baseball - "how hard the players work to get to where they are" - is something she's too modest to admit about her own recovery.

"I just had to do it," she said, referring to her recovery. "You gotta be tough in this world. Nobody's going to do anything for you."

She was also tough, but guarded, in her feelings toward 19-year-old Joseph Genovese Jr., who is charged with vehicular homicide while driving under the influence and aggravated assault for the crash that forever changed Wacker's life and took the life of her friend.

Genovese's preliminary hearing, which had been scheduled for last month, has been postponed until Jan. 21.

Genovese, of Juniper Street near Packer Avenue, remains free on 10 percent of $200,000 bail.

"I think justice, in the end, will be paid," Wacker said. "It's unfortunate for his family because he's such a young kid to start his life this way.

"I hope it's a lesson to other people that you've got to follow the laws. They are there for a reason," she said. "Everybody is responsible for themselves." *