Missing Without A Trace (23 page)

Tom and Tanya’s anniversary was only a couple of weeks away. Anniversaries are always a time for couples to take stock of their marriage. Although they were in love, their relationship had had its ups and downs. They’d sometimes fight. Their last contact—a telephone conversation—was brief because Tom had told her, in a funny little boy voice, that he was sleeping. She had hung up quickly. Tossing it off, she said that she would hang up on Tom “all the time…. It’s part of my charm. I’m angry at my husband 99.9% of the time because men aren’t sensitive to women’s emotions.”

During our sessions of guided imagery, where Tanya was led into a dreamlike-state, her visualizations were relentlessly filled with images of Jeeps. It is possible that a Jeep was coming towards her that day from the opposite direction. Perhaps it was driving over the line and Tanya swerved to avoid a head-on collision. Or perhaps there was foul play, and a Jeep followed her and purposely ran her off the road. In one of her guided-imagery sessions, in which Tanya was asked to visualize herself heading towards the ravine, she saw a disturbing image of a silver-gray Jeep in the parking lot at Fred Meyer. “I try to put myself where I park—a Jeep pops up!” And, indeed, the still shot from Fred Meyer’s surveillance camera reveals a chilling picture: a silver gray Jeep parked near Tanya’s car the morning she was last seen.

There may have been other types of foul play afoot. For example, someone may have tampered with Tanya’s car. Tom told the detective that, about a week before she disappeared, Tanya had called him from her work at the Nordstrom Rack. She was distraught. “She’d called up and was asking, ‘Why are all these people laughing at… me?’ ‘I don’t know, hon. I’m not there. What’s going on?’ And she just said, ‘Well, these people keep walking by my car, and they’re laughing’. I said, ‘Well, hon, maybe, maybe they’re not laughing at you’. That’s part of her depression… she thinks everything’s aimed at her…. She said a few of ‘em were just customers and then one of ‘em was a girl who’d been snotty with her at the … Nordstrom Rack.”

Why and how Tanya ended up in a ravine off Highway 169 is still an unsolved mystery. But, what is clear is that the Sheriff’s Department spent more time suspecting Tom of domestic violence and investigating him than they did looking for her. From the beginning, the detective told him, “A lot of times what happens is … people just need a break. For whatever reason, they’re just gone for a time…. The spouse of a missing person (is) typically somebody law enforcement has to clear … because … statistically if something bad is gonna happen to a person, it’s gonna be
with somebody they know…. Any domestic violence history between you guys?” Tom tried to assure him, “I’ve never raised a hand to her.”

A deputy wrote that Tom “said he doesn’t want KCSO [King County Sheriff’s Office] to bother getting any warrants to search anything, that he will give access to anything detectives want.” Tom “said he is concerned they will spend time trying to eliminate him as a suspect, instead of trying to locate victim.” And he was right. Ironically, eight days later, as Tom had begun taking their polygraph test, Tanya was finally found. If Sheriffs would have searched for Tanya sooner, she could have been spared some of the trauma of being trapped. And there still would have been time enough to arrest Tom and put him in jail, if her condition validated their suspicions.

Asking Tanya, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a ravine like this?” does not solve the mystery. When confronted with continuing speculation, Tanya’s response most often is, “My mind has chosen to forget how I got into the ravine. This way, I have peace.” But it is only an illusion of peace. Repressing memories of eight days of trauma takes its toll.

The Lost Eight Days

Ironically, while Tanya was buried in blackberry bushes, Tom was at work clearing blackberry bushes from a different wood, when he got the call that she was missing.

At the beginning, Tanya held on to hope that she would be rescued, just as she had held on to hope of her father rescuing her when she was a little girl. But her childhood dreams had been dashed, as he never did come riding in on a white horse to save her.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s song “Memory,” from the musical
Cats
, could well have served as the backdrop to Tanya’s entrapment.

Daylight, see the dew on the sunflower
And a rose that is fading
Roses wither away
Like the sunflower I yearn to turn my face to the dawn
I am waiting for the day
.

While she was waiting, Tanya desperately longed for her deceased dog, Lady, who had comforted her countless times in the past.

Through guided-imagery sessions, where Tanya was soothed into deep relaxation and an altered state of consciousness, she was able to see flashes of visual images from these lost eight days. “I didn’t know where I was…. I couldn’t see cars. I could only hear them…. I knocked on the window a lot, hoping someone would hear me…. I tugged at my seat belt. It wouldn’t come off…. The music was on. I turned it up real loud…. Why hadn’t I bought seat belt covers? I wish I had…. I can’t get my seat belt off. It’s irritating me!”

Tanya pulled her phone from the dashboard, through the steering wheel, to call 911. At least, this is what she imagined she was doing. In actuality, Tanya couldn’t reach her phone. After she was rescued, Tanya adamantly insisted that she’d called 911 and had told the police that she had gone off the road and needed help. But, in her mind, they had only laughed at her and called her “stupid.” She also believed she had called Tom and was furious with him for taking so long to get to her. It may have been wish-fulfillment dreams, hallucinations or delusions. But, there were no records of these calls. On the other hand, many people did try calling her, to no avail. In her guided image she saw, “My phone is somewhere over there. I can’t reach it. I hear it ringing.”

While trapped, as Tanya became hungry and thirsty, she thought of having stopped at Whole Foods earlier that morning, after having gotten off work. When she was brought back to these moments, through her guided images, she recalled, “I felt gross stopping at Whole Foods
because I’d just gotten off my dirty job, where I’m on my knees a lot. Around this time, somebody spilled Scope on the floor and I got some on the bottom of my foot…. I used to like to get pancakes at Whole Foods, but I go with what my body’s craving…. I bought bottled water. Water is my first priority…. When I would come back home, I would crash. So, I would get something to eat that I’d eat later, when I woke up. We didn’t have a fridge here…. There was something I was getting that I liked. I used to make salads in their deli bar. I don’t know if I did that that day. I liked the scrambled eggs and I sprinkled cheese on top…. I don’t have a recollection of eating or drinking anything that day.”

Tanya’s pleasant imagery of her favorite foods was suddenly interrupted by her recall of a “foul smell.” “I’m thinking I’m never gonna buy that again.” But, what Tanya had thought was bad food, was actually her bodily wastes. She recalls that, again and again, “I had to go to the bathroom in my seat and I was crying.” Since she was not able to eat or drink, her body began essentially ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’ itself—producing urine and feces that piled up around her. This was agonizing for Tanya, who had long striven for order and cleanliness.

Memory, all alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again
.

As each day passed, Tanya’s life became more surreal. She floated in and out of consciousness. Except for the searing pain, it was akin to being in a sensory-deprivation tank. And while her body was shutting down, she was fighting thoughts that she was going to die. “There was no way I could have survived eight days without God. God’s taken away my memories…. But my body remembers…. The evidence is written in my scars.”

Indeed, the universe brought many forces together to save Tanya. During all the years she’d tried to ward off depression, by focusing on her health, she’d obsessively worked out at the gym, done other exercises, eaten health food, and taken herbs and natural dietary supplements. So, her body was in good shape. The dogged discipline she’d honed in order to persevere with her health regimen helped her persevere in her fight for survival.

Though Tanya’s body was trapped, her mind wasn’t. Because of her abusive childhood, she had learned to disconnect herself from her body and her surroundings. This time, once again, the protective psychological mechanism of dissociation would save her from entrapment. She was able to rise above her physical self and float off to a happier, prettier place, instead of the desperate situation in which she was trapped. Tanya has said that, while she was pinned behind the wheel, it felt as though her beloved dog, Lady, was taking her on a sightseeing tour, guiding her away from misery to more serene settings, like ethereal Thomas Kincaid paintings of idyllic landscapes bathed in light.

Tanya’s determination also saved her. Her mantra, in defiance of her abusive childhood, had long been “I will not be anybody’s victim.” When asked what she thought about in order to not give up, Tanya said, “Tom and I—our love is not breakable.” And, “If you have a deep relationship with God, it’s not breakable.”

Daylight, I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I mustn’t give in
When the dawn comes tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin
.

When Tanya was found, on the same day that she and Tom were
supposed to put their final signatures on their mortgage papers, she was hanging from her seatbelt. “When the police officer crashed his way through my car window on the passenger side, it startled me. I was very scared of him…. And he was stunned because I was able to talk to him and drink water.”

Miracle of Maple Valley

Though Tanya is not the first, nor only, one to survive without food or water for more than a week, it is still unusual. Some might even say it is a miracle.

Before Tanya could be extricated from her crushed and mangled SUV, she anxiously told the medics who arrived on the scene, “I can’t feel my legs.” Tanya was bewildered and covered in diffuse glass fragments from her windshield. It took over two hours to disentangle her from the wreckage, during which time her breathing slowed and almost stopped, prompting the medics to intubate her. According to the medical records, they were “unable to get a pulse, so a trauma code was called.”

When Airlift Northwest transported her from the scene to Harborview Medical Center, they noted that Tanya had a “laceration above left eye…. Bruising from left shoulder to right pelvis—appears to follow seat belt line.” Her lungs had “breath sounds” that were “diminished.” They observed skin “breakdown” into “decubitus” ulcers from prolonged pressure over her pelvis and knees. They also diagnosed her as having a head injury, abdominal injury, multiple trauma, and hypovolemia (a decrease in the volume of circulating blood).

When Tanya got to Harborview Medical Center, emergency room doctors rushed to stabilize her. They intensively infused fluid close to her heart and performed the most urgent diagnostic tests. Before she left the ER, her list of diagnoses had lengthened: threatened limbs—both legs were
without a pulse; pressure ulcers on her pelvis, both legs, and abdomen where the seat belt was; fractures of her ribs, left clavicle, and a spinal vertebra; acute kidney failure; pneumomediastinum (air in the middle of the chest due to leaks from the lungs or airways); pneumoretroperitoneum (air behind the lining of the abdominal cavity); and pockets of air in her right armpit.

Tanya was taken for x-rays and CAT scans and then transferred straight to the Intensive Care Unit. “Initially, she was awake and following commands.” But this didn’t last long. Since her body temperature was only 87.6 degrees Fahrenheit instead of the normal 98.6, doctors initiated “aggressive rewarming.” Blood test results indicated that she had hypernatremia (too much sodium in the blood); acidosis (too much acid in the blood); and rhabdomyolysis (the breakdown of muscles, releasing muscle fiber contents into the blood and causing kidney damage). Her left shoulder was dislocated. Her left forehead laceration cut through her left eyebrow, and the connective tissue sheath covering her bone was exposed. Deep patches of dead skin dotted her chest, abdomen, left elbow and both hips and legs.

It soon became apparent that her left leg had developed ‘compartment syndrome,’ because the muscles, nerves and blood vessels had been compressed for too long. In an effort to save her leg, Tanya was rushed to the operating room for an emergency left leg fasciotomy, the cutting away of the connective tissue covering her muscles, to relieve the pressure.

During the first week, Tanya was in a medically induced coma and on a respirator. Meanwhile, caring citizens went to the site of her accident and searched for things that may have inadvertently been left in the ravine. They retrieved her social security card, the book that contained plans for the house she and Tom were building, and more items, which they returned to her.

Tanya’s first memory in the hospital was becoming “aware of lots of people around me, fiddling around my legs. I asked the nurse for something to drink. She said, ‘We have juice’.” Somewhat disoriented, unable to comprehend the seriousness of her situation and locked into her dietary prohibitions, Tanya asked her if there was sugar in it. “We have water,” the nurse replied. When Tanya innocently inquired, “Bottled?” the nurse looked at her in disbelief. “I was hungry, too,” Tanya added. “I also remember a nurse trying to get out of me what happened. ‘Did you fall asleep?’ she asked. I don’t know.”

When she questioned Tom about what happened, at first, he told her not to worry and said that she was a “miracle.” Tanya didn’t understand. He told her more, a little bit at a time, stopping when he thought it was too much for her. “You were lost for awhile and then we found you,” he added later. Tom brought her the cell phone she had had in the car. “I kept it under my pillow so I could call him.”