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Palo Alto Online

Lasting wounds

by Grace Rauh

Carol Ann McAusland has a plastic-framed photograph attached to her key ring.

It is the family Christmas card picture -- a glowing McAusland surrounded by her three children -- taken only one month before the accident that changed their lives.

She never imagined it would end up above Chloe's hospital bed to remind doctors how her severely injured daughter used to look.

After months of remaining tight lipped with the media, McAusland decided to speak out about her family's journey through this traumatic experience and her hopes to regain part of their former existence.

McAusland's family is still trying to heal from the deadly Jan. 28 accident where 18-year-old Megan Coughran rammed her Buick station wagon into two girls, killing 6-year-old Amy Malzbender and injuring the then 10-year-old Chloe as they biked to school.

The trial is over and Coughran is in jail, yet there is little closure for McAusland and Chloe, who pass the accident site daily. McAusland said she lost her sense of security and the cohesion of a once-closely knit neighborhood. She has abandoned her education tutoring business to juggle raising three kids and hospital and therapy visits and has grown apart from friends who think the worst should be over by now.

"People don't 'get' trauma and don't want to," McAusland said. "And I didn't understand it until I had to live it.

"Life doesn't go back to being what it was before, but hopefully it can go on."

Emblematic of such hope, Chloe is currently walking unassisted, playing soccer, and even tried surfing this summer. However, it has been a long recovery for the child, who has not regained her full physical health.

The thick scar on Chloe's right leg is a lasting testimony to the injuries that kept her hospitalized for three weeks. She fractured her leg, severed a major artery and underwent seven surgeries, according to McAusland.

After the accident, McAusland moved into the hospital as her ex-husband, mother, and a babysitter took turns watching Chloe's younger siblings, Isobel, 5, and Luke, 3. Chloe's hospital room quickly filled with cards, flowers and food from friends.

"About every five days I would go home and grab some clothes, but I couldn't even do that without falling apart," she said.

McAusland would break down whenever she passed the memorial for Amy at the end of her street. When she first arrived at the accident scene, McAusland initially mistook Amy's body for her daughter's.

Chloe's medical bills topped more than $170,000, not including physical therapy, wheelchair use and psychotherapy, which is only partially covered by her insurance. Strapped for cash, McAusland took out a $20,000 equity line on her home to pay the bills and keep her family afloat, according to a probation report concerning the hit-and-run case submitted by Deputy Probation Officer Carol Siddall.

Chloe missed the second half of school last year and faces formidable obstacles as a sixth grader at Terman Middle School. She struggles with math and has trouble lasting a whole day at school, McAusland said.

The family home at the end of quiet Miranda Avenue, where Chloe has lived for eight years, has a gate connecting McAusland's backyard to the Malzbenders'. McAusland and her kids knew nearly everyone in the small, 55-home neighborhood. It no longer provides much sanctuary.

"I can't let my kids walk to school or bike on the street. ... And everything, in trauma talk, is a 'trigger,'" she said.

McAusland wants to move elsewhere in Palo Alto - and has looked at houses in nearby Barron Park -- but uprooting is not financially feasible right now.

"Even parts of Barron Park scare me because there are narrow streets with no sidewalks and people speed."

Chloe grabs her mother's arm and pulls her from approaching cars when they walk down a street.

"She will literally jump into bushes," McAusland said.

For now, one of McAusland's most difficult hurdles is counterbalancing her desire to keep her kids safe with her fear of smothering them. She wants them to enjoy the same freedoms they did before the accident, but it is hard for her to let go.

"Hopefully we can recapture that. Things won't be the same, but that is something we are trying to regain."

E-mail Grace Rauh at grauh@paweekly.com