VOL. CXVIII, NO. 138
DAILYBAROMETER.COM
FRIDAY, MAY 13, 2016
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
From near death to near recovery Almost killed in 2013, former student, model returns to OSU this Saturday for the Spring Fashion Show By Josh Worden Senior Beat Reporter
When Jessica Neffendorf walks down the runway at the Oregon State Alumni Center on Saturday, it will be the third time she has modeled at the OSU Spring Fashion Show. She expected this moment to come a long time ago. After all, Neffendorf modeled at the show her sophomore and junior years in Corvallis in 2012 and 2013. She planned on modeling in 2014, too. Then, disaster struck. Literally. Neffendorf was driving home from class on Nov. 21, 2013. At 4:35 p.m., she turned left from Circle Boulevard onto Highway 20. Her car was struck by a drunk driver with a suspended license, who ran a red light and slammed his car directly into her driver-side door. Neffendorf suffered a broken femur, shattered pelvis and damage to her liver, bladder and spleen. She endured so much head trauma that doctors had to remove part of her skull to relieve pressure while her brain swelled. The drunk driver was able to walk immediately after the crash; Neffendorf had to be extricated from her car and rushed to the hospital, where she lay in a coma for nearly three weeks. “I don’t remember anything about the accident, which is good because I’d be afraid,” Neffendorf said this week. “He completely wrecked my car and wrecked me. [Doctors] had to really do everything on the inside of me.” After the crash, Neffendorf began questioning if any of her dreams were possible. She spent four weeks in the intensive care unit, four months in the hospital and then several more months strapped in a wheelchair. She couldn’t shower without the help of her mother and her body didn’t always respond well to the medication. She couldn’t move her limbs and thought she would never walk again. For the better part of a year, she had trouble speaking. “I had come to terms with it,” she said. Neffendorf had plenty of goals before the accident. She
was on track to graduate in the spring of 2014 and had connections with Nike for a possible job after college. She and her boyfriend Shane had talked about getting engaged before he shipped off to Afghanistan in the spring. All of these aspirations seemed unreachable in the months following her nearfatal crash. Neffendorf came to watch the OSU Fashion Show in 2014, the same show she intended to model for until the accident less than six months prior. The show was dedicated to Neffendorf and she was brought on stage in her wheelchair to be recognized, but she wasn’t ready to be in front of an audience yet. Still fighting sickness and an upset stomach, Neffendorf had to leave early. To this day, she has no recollection of the event. “She was upset because she knew that she should have been up there [modeling]. That broke my heart,” said Tessie Blake, a senior in Apparel Design who has helped put on the show since 2013. But luckily, Neffendorf had plenty of support in her rehabilitation process. Part of the proceeds as well as extra donations from that year’s Fashion Show were given to Neffendorf’s family for her medical expenses. In her time in the hospital, she was rarely unaccompanied by her family or boyfriend Shane. “She just had this determination that she was going to fight,” said Jessica’s father, Don Neffendorf. “Whatever downturn there was — she had some infection issues, the internal injuries, the brain injury— whatever it was, she was determined. She was going to fight. When the doctors said, ‘Jess, are you in there? We need you,’ we knew she was in there fighting. We knew she wasn’t going to give up.” After improving well enough to move out of the hospital, Neffendorf moved back to Gresham to live with her mother. A taxi cab would pick Neffendorf up every day to take her to the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Center in Beaverton. “I liked going to rehab,” NICKI SILVA | THE DAILY BAROMETER See Recovery, Page 4 Tessie Blake, (LEFT) helped to design the garments Jessica Neffendorf (RIGHT) will wear Saturday.
Celebrating Native American culture at OSU Pow-wow, salmon bake,events being held this weekend
will be offered as a prize to the best dance team during the 40th annual Klatowa Eena Pow-wow, taking place tomorrow. Along with the pow-wow, two other major events this weekend will work By Lauren Sluss towards bringing awareness and celNews Reporter After months of selling Krispy ebration to the Native American culKreme donuts outside of the Native ture—the 2016 annual Salmon Bake American Eena Haws Longhouse, the today at noon in the NAL and a perNAL and the Native American Student formance by Native rapper Supaman Association will not be keeping the tonight at 7 p.m. in the SEC Plaza. These events will educate the public profits to themselves. The money
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on current Native American traditions and will kick off American Indian Week beginning May 14, according to NASA Vice President Matt Williams. “A lot of times we talk about Native Americans in the past and in the context of U.S. history, but we’re here today,” Williams said. “These events are good opportunities to learn from current traditions.” Honoring tradition, the Salmon Bake welcomes the public to join over 1,000 people in eating salmon
donated by local tribes. The Salmon Bake honors the Native American custom of open-pit style, according to Williams. “Salmon is a staple food and an important symbol to many tribes in the Northwest,” Williams said. “It’s the Native American Longhouse’s biggest event of the entire year.” The Salmon Bake fuses the history of Native American tradition, as well as current practices, according to Williams.
“It’s a tradition that has been passed down for thousands of years, and it is unique to the Northwest,” Williams said. “It’s good to acknowledge there were ways of living before modern society, and appreciate how things were done and are continuing to be done today.” After the Salmon Bake, the public is encouraged to watch Native American hip hop dancer Supaman tonight at 7 p.m. in the SEC plaza, according to
See NASA Page 3
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