Oh, Thank Goodness : Her Walk to Recovery

In 1989, the Earth trembled, skies poured, killer winds howled, tankers spilled and revolutions swept the globe. In Los Angeles, gang violence claimed yet more victims and traffic seemed to grow ever worse. Still, amid the tide of oft-tragic happenings, small rays of hope keep shining through. Here are a few of many stories worth sharing on a day of feasting, family and friends. They’re enough to remind that it’s still worth saying: “Oh, Thank Goodness.”

Latonya Holsome plans to walk to the Thanksgiving table today. Determination never had a better definition.

“In July, 1987, I was on a freeway in Nevada when a wrong-way driver came out of nowhere and smashed head-on into my car,” she recalls. “I was able to pull my woman passenger out of her seat, but I looked down and saw my left leg almost swinging off.

“Another car stopped, and I kept asking the lady (who stopped): ‘Am I gonna die?’ She would say: ‘You just keep squeezing me as hard as you want.’ ”

Her passenger, Holsome says, remains in a coma. Although Holsome escaped death, she was told by a series of surgeons that amputation would be required. “I said: ‘No, no, no!’ ”

After several operations, however, all the while unable to walk without crutches, Holsome faced up to a reality: The leg would have to be surgically removed, below the knee, if she ever wanted to walk again.

The operation was performed three months ago.

“Am I bitter? No,” says Holsome, 25, of Inglewood. “I want to move on with my life. I want to walk with my child in the park. And I want to be walking on Thanksgiving Day.”

Holsome, mother of year-old Keomi, went to the UCLA Prosthetic Orthotics Laboratory, for the skills of prosthetists Carlo Lira and Jack Mark. “She has had an extremely positive attitude,” Lira says, “and thus she is having positive results.”

Earlier this month, she walked out of the lab on the prosthesis she had been fitted with.

“I practice on it at home about five hours every day,” Holsome says. “It takes a little getting used to. When my mom saw me walking again, she cried.”

Holsome will spend today with her family. “And when dinner is served,” she says, “I will walk to that table.”

Don’t bet against her.