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MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm Michael Dunne. Maya Barnard-Davidson of Bend was a great skier who won various medals and awards in that sport, like so many who excel in this pursuit, she was born to go fast, but one day on a brutally cold winter day on the slopes of Mount Hood, her need for speed caught the edge of rock-hard ice and sent her into a catastrophic crash. She'd wake up weeks later from a coma and suffering a traumatic brain injury. Today on the show, you'll hear from Maya about the skiing accident, but you'll also hear how it absolutely doesn't define her. What does is an amazing will to overcome obstacles, tremendous patience and wonderful teamwork, and all this came to fruition as she was able to recently graduate from OSU Cascades and is now looking forward to becoming a scientist.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Maya Barnard-Davidson, a recent graduate from OSU Cascades. Thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Thank you so much.
MICHAEL DUNNE: So, even before we get into sort of your story, I just kind of want to, you know, talk about sort of where you grew up, grow where you grew up, and also kind of how you got into skiing, because I know that factors big into your story.
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: It really does. I grew up in two different places, as in two different states. I started in Pocatello, Idaho, and I grew up skiing or learning to ski in the Rockies. And then when my dad got transport or transferred over to a different hospital to work here in Bend, Oregon, we moved to Bend Oregon, okay, okay. Well, it started out as the dolls, okay, so when the Dallas and then vendor again, okay, okay, how'd you get into skiing? I just started not long after I could walk. I don't know how, but it was something my parents always sent the kids to do…
MICHAEL DUNNE: And you got really good at it, right?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Yeah, national, second place for young women, 18-year-old in the super pipe, and fifth, I think, for slip style. So, I was big into freestyle, as well as ski racing, so I went to state. I never technically placed, but I got close sometimes.
MICHAEL DUNNE: So, you, you were, you were very much a big-time skier, and then that sort of is a good place to start. Let's, let's talk about your story, because obviously something happened while you were skiing that is really a big part of who you are now, talk about that. Talk about what happened at Mount Hood.
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: So, Mount Hood, the conditions were just wretched. I didn't think anything of it. It was basically ice, a sheet of ice with, you know, a little bit of ice on top of that ice. So just terrible conditions. And I was getting tired, and I ended up going far too fast, and who knows, I think I went off of a little bit of a cliff, but then I ended up crashing at the bottom of the hill. And if it weren't for some very near and dear friends, now, one of them making sure my airway was clear to breathe I would not be here. Yeah, you know,
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know, you suffered what is known as a traumatic brain injury. And in reading about you. I know that you were in a coma, and I'm wondering if you could share with us whatever you're comfortable sharing when you emerged from that coma, can you describe what it was like?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: I didn't believe that I was awake. Hmm, it was interesting. It took me a little bit to come to because when you come out of a certain level of comatose state, my mother knows more about this than I do, but from what I remember is that I was still kind of technically in a coma, because I was staring off into the distance. I wasn't actually making eye contact and making a connection in my brain that there were people communicating with me, I would just be looking around. And it took me a few, a lot of intensive inpatient therapy to get back to being able to do outpatient therapy. About three months it was March, I went back home, and then I was released to do outpatient therapy from there on out, and it was a lot of hard work, learning to walk, talk, eat, create thoughts in the neural pathways that go through your brain again, because mine were all kind of disrupted like as I like to reference it. Think of a file box. I still organize all my receipts and everything finances in paper form. Think about pouring out that file box from the last like, let's say, 19 years, and it's just everywhere. That's kind of how it felt for me to reorganize and put myself back together cognitively with help, of course, of professionals.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know skiing is a very dangerous sport, and I would imagine that there were times as you became a great skier, that you might have fallen and gotten injured, a knee, an ankle, something like that. And that takes a certain level of pain tolerance, but also recovery. And so, I'm wondering, you know, having to perhaps recover, unless you were extremely lucky, and tell me if you were, that you never got injured skiing, but I'm wondering if you did compare that with what you had to recover from with a brain injury.
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Well, I never really broke any bones, just had sprains from skiing. So it is that I was kind of lucky in that sense, although when I got into ski racing in high school, I used to really like going fast. And when you combine going fast with oops, I accidentally caught the tip of my ski on this gate that I was trying to go around that I'm practicing for, like a race on. You can fall and hit your head really hard. I know I always wore a helmet during ski racing, but I know that through ski racing, I sustained at least two, maybe three more concussions. And it was, the recovery was just kind of like, lay low, just don't work out too hard, don't, I guess, think too hard. Not technically, think too hard, but just try not to do too much for your brain so you can let it recover as fully as it can.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I know competitive, highly skilled athletes tend to be type A personalities that they know, you just want to keep going and, and when you get a setback, you want to power through it. I'm wondering with such trauma, you know, what was it like during the recovery, and I'm speaking specifically around times when you got extremely frustrated and, if so, how did you kind of almost coach yourself to be patient?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Ooh, that's a tough one. Well, not tough in a negative way, but it does completely resonate for me, because I have always been kind of one of the A types as you said, go, go, go, people. And when I had this wrench or the speed bump, or whatever it can be called this life changing, changing experience in my life of sustaining a traumatic brain injury put in there, it really taught me patience. Because other than falling out of the hospital bed, when I thought I could still walk on my own, as right after I came out of okay, like a week after I came out of a coma, I thought I could go to the bathroom on my own, that was not a good idea. So, I just, I really, from that point forward, it was like, Okay, I really have to slow down, listen to my body again, get all the help that I can get to get back to where I was once previously. I didn't think I ever would, but I would like to say that I have gotten back to that point, and if not excelled past where I was.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Pretty amazing. When you got frustrated. You know, how did you again coach yourself through that? Because I imagine there must have been many moments when it felt futile, it felt frustrating, it felt like the recovery wasn't happening fast enough. How did you keep yourself moving forward?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Well, that is true, it did seem futile so many times for me, but I kind of do as I still do, I just end up making it so that I stay busy and I stay distracted and I always have something to be doing. So, I cannot think about that. And when I am I have taken on something, I guess I took it on more seriously the last over the last few years, is that I journal every single night and I write out everything, just to try to see like I can see where I once was and how my handwriting has improved, but also my cognitive thoughts, like making the full sentences and a sum up of basically What I did in a day in comparison back then to what I can do now, it's like, astounding for me still.
MICHAEL DUNNE: I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase, one day at a time. Was that important to you? Did you utilize that at any step during your recovery? Of course, I don't want to think months and months ahead. I want to think about just getting through and improving today?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Yeah, it was that a lot for me, and I think it's pretty humorous to an extent. For me, it wasn't just a day at a time, it was one step at a time, because I had to get the motor controls and everything back into sync, I guess, to an extent, but it was just one foot in front of the other, like I can, if I can walk across this room, I can do X, Y, Z tomorrow, or just setting miniature, not miniature, but small goals for myself every single day to get back to this point. And working with so many therapists and learning how to accept the help has been an astounding part of my recovery process in the beginning, and it continues even now I don't technically need to ask for help, but when I do, I don't feel ashamed in asking for help. And that's so important to know that there should be no shame in asking for help.
MICHAEL DUNNE: When, in sort of the timeline of your recovery, when did it? When did you decide - Okay, I'm at a level now where I want to go to college? I want to go and get a degree.
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Well, that is an interesting query. I always knew, since I was in seventh grade, that I wanted to get a biology degree. I have no idea why, but I've always been like, well, I fell in love with biology, mitosis, meiosis. I drew pictures of it. I was so amazed with it, and I guess I just didn't know if I could still do it. So, I tested out, I dipped my toes in the water of psychology, and that didn't feel right. Then I dipped my toes in the water of business, and that really didn't feel right. So, then I went back to just continuing to build my education, to get my biology degree, because that's basically my dream degree, a degree that I once thought I would have, and always said I would have, from seventh grade forward.
MICHAEL DUNNE: College is challenging under normal circumstances, but you're also still dealing with this recovery. How did you manage the stresses of college, you know, all the things that many of us dealt with, you know: trying to fit in, coursework, all that stuff? But also, dealing with this journey you've been on?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Well, it all started with me going back to school to just get the, what are those called the electives? Out of the way, because I knew I could at least get the electives, especially if they were just exercise and workout classes that I could take almost a full degree of just going to college to get and then about so that. Was the first year after I had my head injury. I took that off to an extent, and I started in winter term, or, yeah, winter term or spring term of the next year in 2016 and I just started doing workout classes one to two until I could get into the flow of college, because having a schedule again was not something that I was technically used to having. And well, I guess, to an extent. And then once I got back into the schedule or the flow of everything, I started to retake and learn what I actually knew, because I did not know what I knew. I had to start at math 10. So that's an additional subject. And it was, it was fun. It was very interesting, because I got to go back through everything again, except for a few classes that I was just like, you know what a C is good. I'm gonna leave that in the background. I don't need to retake that. It's just all about getting back on schedule and seeing that. I do not have a lust, but I do love to learn. It is still one of my favorite things to do.
MICHAEL DUNNE: Well, in reading a story about you. I think you helped to start a bio science journal club and a skiing club. So, you, you took on a lot while you were in school. Talk about that. Talk about again, maybe it's the type A personality coming back. Talk a little bit about that.
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Well, this is true. The thing is, though, the bioscience journal club, I did not start. It had been, I think this is its 11th, so it started the year or two before I had my head injury. But, Dr Jeff Gauci, at OSU Cascades is the head of that and it was just something I really, really enjoyed doing, because a lot of my friends in the sciences were in and a part of the bioscience Journal Club. And so, I took on trying to help it survive during times when people were graduating and leaving, and then I helped to start different clubs. And I, I guess I helped to start different clubs, but then I would kind of step away once it was all started and ready, so that I could just focus on my education, because I can only do so much since I had my head trauma, it's, it's just not as wide of an umbrella as I used to do. I have to, you know, just do a little bit less. And it's not a bad thing. It's just something I'm still getting used to.
MICHAEL DUNNE: So, you've graduated. What's next for you? What would you like to do, you know, in the short term, but then also, you know, longer term towards a career?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Well, let's see, short term is basically having nothing to do with a biology degree or, you know, my career moving forward, but short term is going to be helping and doing a lot of community service, because I want to be able to give back to my parents, for them and their patience and all their help for me to get to the point that I at this time and fix up the farm. And, you know, maybe finish unpacking, because maybe we haven't finished unpacking after 11 or 12 years.
MICHAEL DUNNE: And then, you know, maybe, have you, have you thought a little long term in terms of what, what might be, you know, part of the next step for you?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Yes, I have, I'm, I'm kind of stuck between, not stuck between two worlds, but I'm at a choice point where I need to figure out if I would like to follow something relating to veterinary diagnostics and being a lab tech, or if I will want to follow my actual Dream, which has to do with mycology and that sort of realm which is a little bit more open and kinder of on your own. It's a non-thesis or no, it's a thesis major. But the veterinary Tech is a non-thesis major because it's more enclosed, and it is very like, not strict, but it has more of a you do x, y, z, and this is what you do and get it done. But with the mycology and Plant Pathology, botany side of things that I would like to do, that one's more open, and I am still going to. I will do my best to find a professor who would like to sponsor me for that. I still don't know a whole lot about that, but I'm going to try to learn as much as I can so that I can get into doing that and following my dream.
MICHAEL DUNNE: You know, Maya, my last question for you is this: what advice would you give to people. You've overcome so much, and people have challenges, whether they're physical or recovering from a drastic injury or whatever. Do you have any advice for people who need to overcome something so challenging?
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: I would say, don't feel bad for asking for help from other people. Everybody loves to help everybody else. You just have to know how to not know how to ask, but just be able to ask and also breathe and keep taking one step forward. It's as simple as that, you can do anything you put your mind to. As my grandpa has always told me.
MICHAEL DUNNE: He's a wise man, and that's and that's great counsel. Maya Barnard-Davidson, first of all, congratulations for graduating and really an amazing story. You're an amazing person. Thanks so much for talking with us.
MAYA BARNARD-DAVIDSON: Thank you so much for having me on.
MICHAEL DUNNE: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon on the record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. On a recent show, we highlighted a bill in the Oregon legislature that's now failed, that would take money from the Oregon kicker and send it to wildfire fighting and prevention while it didn't pass. We wanted to hear from you. Would you support a tax increase or change in current tax law to help fund efforts to both fight and prevent forest fires in Oregon? Let us know by going to our Facebook, Bluesky or Instagram pages, or send us an email at questions@klcc.org and we'll read your comments on the air. Tomorrow on the show, you'll hear about a federal plan to sell off public lands and what national and local interests are doing to try and stop it. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon On The Record from KLCC. Thanks for listening.
