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Show Vernal Exprest Wednesday, June 10, 1992 13 Desire to play piamo aids girl's, recovery by Melanie Morrison Lifestyle Writer "I didn't want the accident to change the way my life was," said Julie Bilbey, 12-year-old daughter of Curt and Cathy Bilbey of Vernal. The accident is a memory that will live with the family, and specifically with Julie, for the rest of their lives. The accident Miss Bilbey describes de-scribes with determination in her face and voice happened May 23, 1991, the last day of school. She and her brother, Chuck, and a neighbor, neigh-bor, Preston Searle, were riding horses in a field near their home south of Vernal. Chuck rode ahead of Julie and Preston and left him to help Julie mount the 2-year-old colt, as it was only the second time Julie had ridden. Julie mounted the horse and wrapped her right hand in the leather straps. Something startled the animal, and it began to buck. "My foot got caught, and I leaned over. I landed on the ground," Julie remembered. When she looked up from the ground, she found Chuck and Preston leaning over her. Preston yelled to Chuck that Julie had been thrown off the horse. He was trying to help her and discovered the thumb on her right hand had been pulled out of its socket. Chuck rode over to the scene of the accident and Preston told him what he had discovered. Chuck ran to the road and flagged down two passing motorists, telling the first what happened and requesting that the driver take Julie to the hospital. He put Julie in the car and they sped off. Julie was fully conscious at this time. The second motorist waited while Chuck went back to the scene to retrieve re-trieve the thumb, if he could find it Shortly before Julie's accident, the family had watched the "911 Rescue" television show which reenacted a similar accident where a victim had lost a limb. He knew he needed to act fast and calmly. He says that a lot of the reaction was instinctive. Searle helped to look for the thumb and it was he who actually found it. He motioned to Chuck that it had been spotted. Chuck went over and picked it up and ran to the road to the waiting motorist. They headed for AVMC. There was no time to put the thumb on ice as he had seen in the television show. "All I was thinking was, 'I wish this guy would drive faster'," Chuck said. Cathy was at a doctor's appointment appoint-ment when she was notified that her daughter was in the emergency room at the hospital. Curt was fishing fish-ing at the Flaming Gorge Dam. Artists to exhibit in July at Western Heritage Museum K. Hollebeke and David Ahrnsbrak will present a dual show of new and exciting works during July at the Western Heritage Museum at 310 East 200 South, Vernal. The display will open July 3 and run through the 31st. The exhibit will feature a dozen or more large works by Hollebeke, two sculptures, one of them new, and her first print. Copies of the print will be for sale at the gift shop in the museum during the show. Many of the pieces on display will also be for sale. K. Hollebeke was born in West Germany. "I began my art training in' Europe while still young, and when I moved to the States in my teens, I attended art schools in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, studying study-ing art history and techniques, as well as commercial advertising and illustration." "My interest in Western Art began when I moved to West Texas and realized a love for the ways of the Old West," said Hollebeke. Hollcbcke's ideas for paintings came from reading and research. After settling in the Uintah Basin, she said, "A new dimension came to my painting, because of the variation varia-tion of scenery available. I was inspired in-spired by the rolling hills of the desert area, the craggy rocks in Dry Fork Canyon, and the majestic mountains of the Uintas." "I was shocked to think something could happen to one of my kids," Cathy said. "I was relieved when I saw her in the emergency room and realized that the accident could have been much more serious. The first thing she said when she saw me was 'I guess the camping plans have been ruined'." The family had planned an early season camping trip and were leaving the next day. The family made the decision not to notify Curt about the accident because be-cause they didn't want him to drive from Flaming Gorge, pulling a boat, upset. He was told about the accident acci-dent when he arrived home around 9 p.m. Julie was stabilized at AVMC and then prepared for a flight to Salt Lake City. A helicopter had been ordered or-dered for the transport, but cancelled can-celled because her mother wouldn't be able to accompany her on the flight. So LDS Hospital arranged for her and Cathy to fly on a medical medi-cal jet The flight took only 20 minutes min-utes and Julie was able to sleep through the trip. "I experienced some real guilt feelings because I wasn't there when the accident happened, but later realized that I had no control over what happened. Now I'm overly over-ly protective," Cathy stated. Chuck intervened with a chuckle, "Yeah, she wouldn't let me go bungee jumping this weekend." Dr. Motoki, a reconstructive plastic plas-tic surgeon, met Julie and Cathy at Primary Children's Hospital. Shortly afterwards, Julie's grandparents, grandpar-ents, Dorothy and Glad Anderson arrived with Curt and Chuck at the hospital. Dr. Motoki explained to the family what the procedure would be to reattach the thumb. He told the family that if he didn't feel he could reattach the thumb, he would be out in one-half hour. If he got in there and thought he could save the thumb, the surgery would take a very long time. Julie was taken tak-en into surgery. When the first 30 minutes passed and the doctor didn't come out, Cathy and Curt knew that Dr. Motoki was proceeding with the operation. op-eration. Periodically, a nurse would come out and tell the family of the progress. The doctor emerged after 12 hours and told the family that the next 48 hours would be the most critical and he would know then if something went wrong. A nurse approached the family and told them that Julie was asking for her brother. When he went into her room, she wanted to know where the thumb was and if her dad had caught any fish. The 48-hours was nearly past when, following a check up, the doctor discovered that something The Basin offers a varied wealth of locations, said Hollebeke, where the excitement and romance of the Old West lives. "I hope to make a worthwhile statement in the hearts and minds of those who enjoy it." Hollebeke is represented by several sever-al galleries in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Her paintings hang in permanent collections in universities, universi-ties, banks, business offices, museums muse-ums and major private collections throughout the United States and Europe. Recently several paintings and a sculpture done by Hollebeke were purchased to be included in a collection in Japan. "I consider Western Art a true form of American Art and feel strongly that Western Art is a fine art and must be painted well." Hollebeke said, "It is my ambition to portray the West with a realistic approach in all its variations of mood and excitement If I can achieve one emotional response through my paintings, then I feel I have accomplished my goal. I not only paint for pleasure of the creation, cre-ation, but for the pleasure of the viewer as well." "My philosophy in art," said Ahrnsbrak, "is best summarized by Sir John Everett Millais; 'Each for the joy of the working, and each in his separate star, shall draw the thing as he sees it for the God of things as they are."' was wrong with the thumb. He gave no false hope to the family as to the surgery's success. They prepared Julie for surgery again. When the doctor opened the wound, he discovered dis-covered that one of the two arteries that feed the thumb had restricted into her arm and that her veins had collapsed. He found two new veins and finished this surgery seven hours later. The thumb immediately regained its color and the doctor assured as-sured the family of the surgery's success. Julie and her mother appeared on the "Children's Miracle Network" telethon while she was in the hospital. hospi-tal. The telethon was broadcast from Primary Children's Hospital. The family returned home in mid-June after living in the Anderson's camp trailer in the RV park at the hospital. hospi-tal. Physical therapy had already been started while Julie was in the hospital. hospi-tal. They returned to Salt Lake City once a week for the next four weeks to check the stitches and chart Julie's progress in therapy. Cathy changed the dressing and cleaned the wound each day. She also gave Julie mild therapy; in arm movement, move-ment, massaging the scars, working the wrist back and forth and opening open-ing and closing Julie's hand. After eight weeks, the doctor pulled the pins out, placed a smaller cast on her hand, and she began working her thumb. She started the sixth grade with her cast on. Many of the things she took for granted in the past, she realized re-alized were much more important, such as, handwriting. She tried to teach herself to write with her left hand, but soon became very frustrated. frus-trated. She eventually devised a way to place her pencil in a slot between be-tween her injured thumb and the cast to write. Her school mates asked a lot of questions and she got to the point where she no longer wanted to relive the accident. At the end of school this year, Julie wore a sleeveless shirt exposing expos-ing a very large, puffy scar under her arm that has not had any plastic surgery performed on it. Before the thumb gave way, her arm began to tear. If the thumb hadn't given way, the arm would have. One comment a school mate made after seeing the scar was, "If that were me, I wouldn't wear that." This upset Julie to think that some people would react to her accident such as this school mate did and not take the time to understand what she has gone through over the past year. This one school mate was an isolated iso-lated case. For the most part, people have accepted Julie and the accident and admired her for her perseverance. persever-ance. Prior to the accident, Julie had 1 NMNNuaaftBM DAVID AHRNSBRAK will exhibit his latest works at the Western Heritage Museum during the month of July. Ahrnsbrak received formal art training at several universities including in-cluding the Kansas City Art Institute and Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, Spain. He received a BFA from Brigham Young University in 1972 and did independent indepen-dent study in Europe and the Middle East as well as graduate work from Atelier Lack. He received a grant in 1978 to research re-search and create a series of historical histori-cal reconstruction paintings for public pub-lic buildings in Uintah County. Several of these works have been made into prints. In 1985 he was commissioned to paint a Presidential portrait for the LDS Church Museum of History and Art. He teaches art in the Community Schools program and at Utah State ( " f ' fS sfi f v L ju J " . - Ciri " " x CHUCK BILBEY listens as his Julie practices the piano. This is taken piano lessons from Jamie Weeks and enjoyed playing when she was young. Each week her therapy ther-apy grew and as her hand became stronger, she told her doctor that she would play the piano again. Her doctor told her to let her thumb be her guide. He felt that playing would be good exercise, but to stop if it began hurting. Mrs. Weeks worked hard with Julie starting in around September, following the accident. Julie compensated com-pensated for not being able to play the stretch chords. She practiced hard for an important event, the family's Christmas party. Julie sat down and played at the Bilbey gathering, gath-ering, to an audience that didn't have a dry eye. Her aunt, Alece Partridge, still gets choked up when she remembers Julie playing lor their family. Julie is still leery of horses. She was doing a science project which involved collecting leaves. Curt and Cathy suggested to her that she check in the field behind the family's fami-ly's home, not realizing that there were horses out there. Her parents watched through a window as she bent over a pick some of the specimens speci-mens up. In their curious nature, the horses came over to investigate what she was doing. "She froze," Cathy said. "I was just going over to the door when University UBEC. From 1986 to the present he has been active in the Artists in Residence program sponsored spon-sored by the Utah Arts Council and has shared his talent in many schools locally and throughout the state. Since moving to Vernal in 1975, David R. Ahrnsbrak has maintained a studio on land inherited from his grandfather. Ahrnsbrak has participated in numerous nu-merous regional, national and international inter-national exhibits and has been a juror ju-ror for numerous shows. His work is found in public and private collections throughout the United States and in private collections collec-tions in Europe. Many of Ahrnsbrak 's most recent works have been painted "plcin aire" (directly from nature), which younger sister, one task nei Curt said to wait a minute to see what she does. "She backed away slowly and soon the horses lost interest in her, and they left. She finished gathering the leaves and ran into the house. She was really mad at her father and me. She has an inner-power that I don't have." In addition to playing the piano, Barbara Bilbey, her paternal grandmother, grand-mother, bought her a light weight bowling ball and the two have been bowling a few times in the past months. She got a new fishing pole from her dad for Easter and has taught herself how to cast. Gripping is one of the most challenging tasks Julies has to undertake. The Bilbeys have learned a lot about themselves over the past year. Julie has taught them not to take 'anything for granted. Chuck worked this past summer herding cattle, riding rid-ing a horse for three days straight He says he has more respect for the animal now than he did before. When May 23, 1992 came around, the family was on an annual camping camp-ing trip. Cathy, with a mother's instinct, in-stinct, woke up that day and saw it as a bad experience to be put behind them. Julie on the other hand, looked at the very positive side' and only said, "Mom, I'm so happy. It's been a whole year since my accident. ac-cident. Look how far we've come." I ,7 I KARIN HOLLEBEKE painting painting she is creating will be in he says is his favorite way to paint. Prints of some of Ahrnsbrak's work will be available for sale as wdl many of the works shown at Uiccxhlb,t- A reception for the two artists will .. "- . , K i rf ' f ' -v 1 I ' MM iMW I t it - - - ther thought Julie would be doing a year ago when she suffered an accident, loosing a thumb. -' y' j THE PALM of Julie's hand is scarred up where doctors were successful in reattaching her thumb to hand. A long scar follows fol-lows a vein in her arm where they had to do a second surgery. Julie has full use of her thumb now other than upward motion in the first joint. That will be her next surgery. If she chooses to have the surgery done in the future, a tendon will be taken from another finger and put in her thumb to help with the motion. At this point, she doesn't want to face another surgery. H.. i ' on location North of Vernal. The the show which opens on July 3. be held July 3 at the museum from 7 to 9 p.m. The public is invited, muscum . f ,Q t0 6 p m da exccpl and Monday. There is no entrance fee. |