Former Ladycat suffers paralyzing injury

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The Brea Olinda girls’ basketball team had its greatest season in 1993-94, when it went 33-0 and was proclaimed the mythical national champion by USA Today. Tara Llanes, a Ladycat guard for that team, moved from hardwood to dirt as a professional cyclist in BMX and mountain bike competition. She was the 2006 National Downhill champion.

On Sept. 1, while competing in the Jeep King of the Mountain event in Beaver Creek, Colo., Llanes crashed and fractured her C7 and L1 vertebra, and damaged her spinal cord. Her injuries have left her paralyzed from the waist down and surgeons have indicated damage is most likely permanent.

Those who have offered encouragement thus far include Ernesto Fonseca, a motocross and supercross competitor who suffered a paralyzing injury in March, 2006, at the Honda practice track in Corona, but who has come back far more than doctors expected.

Llanes, who now resides in Los Alamitos, has already started physical therapy in Denver. She will eventually return to Southern California.

Although there are daily updates on her myspace page, there’s also an update page here. Anyone wishing to make a donation can contribute to her Road to Recovery Fund.

- Martin Henderson