By Nancy Huddleston, Correspondent 

What is normal after you’ve lived through something as monumental as the collapse of the I-35W bridge?

For Brad, Paula, Brianna and Brandi Coulter, it changes every day. Right now, it’s getting Brianna and Brandi ready to start their first semester at Winona State. Or, it might be taking a short trip to Target to pick up something.

And as the first anniversary of the bridge collapse comes around, “normal” also includes talking to the media or sharing their story with strangers who recognize them.

The Coulters were seconds away from getting over the bridge when it collapsed last Aug. 1. The family was on their way to Joe Senser’s in Roseville for a family get together. Their van ended up upside down in a rocky area at the north end of the bridge. The family van made it across the Mississippi River, but not all the way across the bridge. Brad said their van was amongst three other cars and some construction workers. Their view of the rest of the bridge was blocked by a section of the highway.

“We couldn’t see anything that was going on, but we could hear and see the smoke,” Brad said.

Paula, who was sleeping at the time the bridge gave way, says she can’t remember anything past 5 p.m. on Aug. 1 to about Sept. 10, 2007. Of the four, she suffered the worst injuries, to the point that doctors told the family that she would never walk again and she’d never function normally.

But the doctor’s didn’t know Paula was such a fighter. She surprised doctors and inspired others with her recovery and was the last of the bridge collapse victims to leave the hospital on Oct. 5 for the Courage Center. And she was home to celebrate Christmas.

Before being injured in the bridge collapse, Paula was very active and a runner. She believes her physical activity helped her get on the road to recovery, but is disappointed she’s not further along today.

“To me, a year’s a long time,” she said. “And physically, I’m not as far along as I want to be. I think I had independent ideas of how recovery would work and because of my regular exercise I expected my body to bounce back more quickly.”

But now Paula knows better. Even though she goes to physical therapy and works with a trainer at Life Time Fitness, she’s taking a different look at her recovery.

“Realistically, I think it will take two years, and I give it five years to get my body through all of this."

Paula’s greatest struggle right now is walking. She’s already had one surgery for a problem in her legs and is scheduled for a second in August. And she may have two more before it’s all over. The problem stems from her spinal cord injury which is causing her leg muscles to contract and making them tight. Physical therapy can only do so much, so surgery is necessary to make the full correction. Paula said when she gets to the 100 percent level in her recovery, she hopes to begin walking normally.

“I want to get from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ without such an effort,” she said. “I want to be able to run to Target to get something without worrying about how far the parking spot is from the building.”

She’d love to get back to running again, but realistically, she said she’d be happy just to walk decently. For Brad, full recovery would mean getting back to golfing, doing yard work and every day stuff. They both miss working outdoors and around the house.

“By next summer I hope to get out there and plant my own stuff and dig up my own weeds,” Paula said.

For the girls, it’s getting back to playing soccer at the same level they did before the tragedy. Both are headed off to Winona State this month and plan to play for the college team.

Then there’s the part of their lives that involves their link to the bridge, which will never go away. Strangers come up to them all the time to say they recognize them, want to wish them well and ask a few questions. As a family they’ve always been close, but now they are closer. The family has also gotten an outpouring of support from friends, neighbors and the community. Meals were delivered by people to their home up until May of this year. Their Caring Bridge site has had 513,625 visitors, many of whom left inspirational messages for the family.

“We can’t say ‘thank you’ enough to our family and friends for all of the wonderful support we’ve had through all of this,” Paula said, “The enormity of the numbers of people who came to the Caring Bridge site was never expected. And we never expected that large of a group of people would be praying and supporting us as they have through all of this.”

Just recently, Paula went back to work part-time and passed her driver’s assessment test so that she can go places on her own. However, she still can’t dress herself and must plan ahead to go anywhere.

“But once I’m dressed and got my shoes on, I’m pretty independent,” she said. Paula and the girls also have a tattoo on their ankles of a Chinese symbol that loosely translates to “believe and trust.” It has the date of the bridge collapse, 8-1-07 underneath. Brad doesn’t have one saying, “I don’t need a reminder.”

Everyone in the Coulter family thinks about the tragedy every day.

“Things aren’t perfect and they never will be,” Paula reflected, “and we have some down days when we’re frustrated with the situation we’re in. But it’s brought us closer together.”

Nancy Huddleston can be reached at (952) 345-6376 or editor@savagepacer.com [2].