Impaled woman returns home
CHICAGO — An inner strength and the support of her family helped Helen Miller confront a rare heart-disease, but when a tree branch impaled her last month during a blustering wind storm it was the kindness of a stranger that helped her survive.
Miller, 41, returned to her Lake Villa, Ill., home late Monday, and spent Tuesday relishing her latest brush with mortality, when a 65-foot tree fell on her car Oct. 26.
“You could die anywhere,” she said, finally in the comfort of home with her husband, Todd, and their 10-year-old daughter, Samantha.
“I guess with what happened a-year-and-a-half-ago, I didn’t think I was going to die,” she added.
Last year Miller was in a coma for more than a month and underwent heart surgery at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, the same place she was rushed to after the tree branch accident.
Memories of the accident, which happened on her way to work, remain clear.
“I was thinking, ‘Why was it taking so long for people to come and help me?” Miller recalled. “And why didn’t all four of my air bags deploy and why wasn’t my horn working?”
After the tree branch went through her windshield and through her body above her stomach and below her lungs, Miller hung out of the side of her car, waving her arms and calling for help.
She said was covered in blood and glass, and brushed ants from the tree off her body.
“I saw people snap pictures and keep driving,” Miller said. “I thought karma would come back around and bite them in the butt.”
Then Connie Odoms came to her aid. Odoms, of Waukegan, Ill., helped Miller stay comfortable, and called Todd Miller to tell him what happened.
“I think what she did was awesome,” Helen Miller said.
However, Helen Miller said she believes she was the most calm person on the emergency scene.
While on the way to the hospital she sang Vanilla Ice’s song, “Ice, Ice Baby,” because it was close to 9 a.m. — the time she usually sings the song to her students at Waukegan Public School District 60, where she teaches art.
Helen Miller said she plans to make a shadow box art project using the branch, photos from her hospitalization, and a letter from someone who passed the accident scene, which apologizes for not stopping to help.
“She keeps making lemonade out of lemons,” Todd Miller said.
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