Brandi Hutchinson, a huge Taylor Swift fan, was having a good time. Working as a nurse in a men's treatment home for addicts was her ...
Brandi Hutchinson, a huge Taylor Swift fan, was having a good time.
Working as a nurse in a men's treatment home for addicts was her dream job, and she was dating Skyler, whom she thought was her true love.
They chose to take a car trip from Ozark, Missouri, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, in early June. The thing Hutchinson didn't know was that she wouldn't be back for over four months, and when she did, her partner would not be there with her.
She told that during the trip, they got caught in a heavy rainstorm that made their car hydroplane and then flip over four times. When she finally woke up two days later in the hospital, doctors told her she had hurt her whole spinal cord. As soon as first rescuers got to the scene of the crash, they put Skyler into a medically induced coma. It didn't take long to find out that he was brain-dead.
She says that she and his parents chose to "let him go." Hutchinson then began the long journey to healing, which she says she is still on six years later.
First, she had to get better from her last spinal cord accident. After being diagnosed with sepsis more than once, she was given medicines to take for the rest of her life. They told her the infection in her bone was "too deep to cure" and gave her the diagnosis of osteomyelitis. She's also had a lot of surgeries, including two above-the-knee amputations.
It took her 145 days to get back to her Ozark home. Things were not the same, though. In addition to Skyler's terrible death, she had lost a lot of her movement, including the ability to get to her old job or move around the building that she used to work in. Her mum, who was in her 60s, moved back in and took care of her full-time. Additionally, she paid $1,500 for a used wheelchair van that soon needed new parts because some of its parts were 20 years old. This cost her thousands of dollars in repair fees just so she could leave her house easily.
"There always seems to be something new," Hutchinson, who is 33 years old now, tells PEOPLE. "There are times when it's so much that I don't know how to deal with it." After that, her sisters Lauren and Meredith Redding joined the story. The Swifties, who are 33 and 41 years old, are both therapists and hosts of the weekly show TheraSwifts. On it, they talk to a Taylor Swift fan about how her music helped them get through a hard time. After reading Brandi's story on their form, they knew they had to hire her.
She told PEOPLE, "I was shocked by how bad her luck had been." "Everything happened one after the other." Hutchinson says, "I'm one of those people who perpetually never wins anything." Even being chosen to be on the show felt like a blessing to her. "When I got the email, I thought, 'There's no way.'"
Hutchinson told her scary story on the podcast episode, which was recorded in July and came out on August 20. And she talked about how her disability still affects her life, especially how her wheelchair van, which hasn't worked in months, has kept her from getting a job because it's so hard to leave the house with her wheelchair.
Hutchinson says that even when she started to save money for a new car, she would have to pay her rent or cover other more important costs, which made the $50,000 she would need to buy a new van seem more and more out of reach. When Lauren and her sister got off the phone after recording the show, they both broke down in tears because they found Hutchinson's story so moving. They also knew they had to do more than just let the show out into the world. Meredith says, "Brandi was so nice and clear, and she made me think more about disability rights." "It was like, 'Man, if this person could basically and figuratively move around more, she would be such a great advocate in more ways too. Also, she needs a living wage increase.
She also says, "We were like, 'We're getting her a van.'" Meredith says, "Brandi was so nice and clear, and she made me think more about disability rights." "It was like, 'Man, if this person could basically and figuratively move around more, she would be such a great advocate in more ways too. Also, she needs a living wage increase.
She also says, "We were like, 'We're getting her a van.'" Donations started coming in, and now they have over $1,100 since the post in August. A lot of them were in groups of 13--13 is Swift's lucky number--and the heart hand emoji, which is the sign she would use on stage during the Eras Tour and throughout her career.
He says, "I already love Swift so much, and seeing that there's nothing else like the Swiftie community makes it even better."
Even though Hutchinson knows she has a long way to go before she can afford a new car, she says she is still determined to tell as many people as possible about her story for the benefit of all disabled people, and nothing will stop her.
She tells , "I'm in the middle of a small town in Missouri." "These are the times I think, 'This is me being as loud as I can be about disability.'"