Greenwich Citizen

Love, Prayers, Medical Hope Engulf Injured Cori Lantz:

By PATRICIA McCORMACK


The darkest event in the lives of Corinne "Cori" Lantz, 17, and Dan Maymin, 18, took place at 5:54 p.m. on Feb. 21, 2008 around dusk on East Putnam Avenue in front of the CITGO station and across from Dunkin' Donuts.
At the time, Cori was a senior honors student at Greenwich High School. Dan, a GHS 2006 grad, was a second-year student at UConn-Stamford.

The two, heading home after ice-skating, were critically injured when the Jeep driven by Dan was squeezed in a three-car crash that flipped the vehicle and tore off its roof.

Cori and Dan, catapulted onto the street, were badly hurt.

He blacked out. She remembers her back and left arm and hand full of unbearable pain.

"I think the angels peeled back the roof of the Jeep," Cori's mother, Charlene, told the Greenwich Citizen Friday after a three-hour interview with Cori and Dan in the handicapped-accessible apartment in Stamford that the Lantzes moved to when wheelchair-bound Cori came home at the end of June.

The place the single mother lived in Greenwich with her three daughters-Cori, Emily, 22, and Ashley, 25, had stairs. Cori cannot navigate stairs.

"I think if the roof had stayed on, her head would have hit it and that would have been the end," Lantz said, searching for something about the accident to be grateful about.

In the Stamford Hospital emergency room, doctors determined Dan had nine broken ribs, cerebral (brain) bleeding and injuries to his left arm and hand. He was put into an induced coma during the mending process. When released March 10, he had mild amnesia.

Asked Friday what kind of a car he drives now, Dan replied:

"I don't. I'm afraid to drive."

Doctors at Stamford Hospital found Cori was paralyzed from the waist down, had burst fractures in her spine resulting in a spinal cord injury and had numerous and complex fractures to her left arm and hand.

After eight surgeries and two months she was transferred April 9 to Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw, N.Y., for rehabilitation. On April 28 Cori was transferred again - this time to Shriners Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.

She was treated there until June 16 - two days before her class was to graduate from Greenwich High. She made the graduation, pushed in a wheelchair by her sister Emily.

At Shriners Hospital, Dr. Scott Kozin, specialist in upper extremity orthopedics, harvested some nerves from the backs of Cori's legs (below the knee) and grafted them to a place in her upper back, where there are nerves that control her left arm and hand.

"I was told nothing is guaranteed but that if things turned out, the graft would grow an inch a month for 18 months. "I think it's working," Cori said. "I can lift my hand a little."

The due date on the surgery's success: New Year's Day 2010. Cori has high hopes. Here's why:

"Dr. Kozin told me I just might get the use of my left arm and hand back after 18 months," she said.

If that happens, Cori could work the dual that drives a handicapped-accessible van. That would give her independence.

While at Shriners Hospital, Cori made up the one credit she needed to graduate with her class on June 18. She was tutored by the English teacher there. The class assignment for the credit was reading and writing about The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.

"It's about a guy who wakes up and finds he's turned into a bug," Cori said.

She graduated with a 3.6 grade point average and honors.

Afterward, the family held a celebratory dinner and talked about the many roads ahead for Cori as she advances in her quest to walk. Her school plans include UConn-Stamford in the fall. Dan expects to help her as needed.

Cori indicated she relies on hope, prayer and the love of her family and friends, especially Dan.

With her good right hand, she patted a ruby shawl folded on her lap and looked at it lovingly.

"That's a prayer shawl," Cori's Mom said. "It was made by the knitters at Second Congregational Church. With every stitch, I'm told there was a prayer for Cori's recovery. Isn't that lovely?"

What would Cori like to do with her life?

"I'm good at languages," she said. "French and Spanish - and now Dan is teaching me Russian. Before I thought I might go into international affairs. But now, I think as I work on recovery I might go into medicine."

At this point, she is thinking about a special rehabilitation place for those with spinal cord injuries. It is called Journey Forward and based in Canton, Mass., outside Boston.

"I checked it out on the Internet," Cori said.

"They put you in a harness to hold you up on a treadmill and aides move your legs - and you're supposed to concentrate in your head on walking. As I understand it, this helps to re-wire your brain (into the walking mode)."

Cori's Mom said the center - named Journey Forward - was set up by Dan Cummings. At 19, he was paralyzed from the chest in a swimming accident.

Lantz reported that Cummings received such therapy in San Diego years ago and claims it resulted in his being able to walk after six years. After that success, he returned to the Boston area to open the new center that emulates the San Diego routine.

A newspaper account in Lantz's files reports that a year ago Cummings walked out to the mound in Fenway Park and threw out the ceremonial first pitch for a Red Sox game.

Softball Benefit on Tap

Cori's sister Emily has organized an Aug. 16 Cori Lantz benefit softball tournament in Darien. The rain date is Aug. 17. Emily, Cori's mother and another sister, Ashley, announcing the event in a recent e-mail to the family's wide circle of friends, noted:

"Cori's medical bills are enormous. We now face the necessity of financing medical and rehabilitation costs which go above what is covered by insurance and which includes transportation and rehabilitation programs such as Project Walk/Journey Forward."

After the three chatted about the benefit, Cori and Dan volunteered something they mysteriously have in common. They said it makes them pause and reflect.

Dan held out his scarred left hand and arm. The scar on the inner portion of the lower half of his arm is a perfect raised scar that resembles a Smiley face.

The inside of Cori's left arm about in the same location shows two dots and a Smiley mouth. All that's needed is to put a circle around the dots to make it look mostly like a Smiley face.

"Cori had had those dots there forever," Lantz said.

Dan said: "I think this coincidence means God intends good for us."

For more information, go to www.corilantz.org.