Everything seemed to be going so well for us. We were sold out all over. Then we got a cal – the President would like to meet us! Thrilled, we made the trip to the White House on March 19. The President and I talked about an anti-drug billboard campaign I had just completed that said, "If you need someone, call a friend. Don’t do drugs." I had been worried that Nayib would be nervous, but he had a wonderful time.

That night we were supposed to attend a dinner in New York. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. I was tired. Emilio mentioned flying, but I wanted to rent a tour bus so I could rest on the way. The dinner turned out to be fun – our old friend Julio Iglesias was there, and we had a chance to catch up with him.

The next morning we piled back into the customized tour bus for the five-hour drive to Syracuse, New York, our next concert stop. Nayib and his tutor were at one end of the bus studying, and Emilio was at the other, on the phone, his home away from home. I wanted to take a nap to be fresh for the performance, so I slipped the worst spy movie we had into the VCR, knowing if would make me sleepy. An hour, outside of New York City, I fell asleep on one of the bus’s two couches.

About forty-five minutes later we stopped, and I opened my eyes. It was snowing outside. Everything was white and so quiet that it was eerie. Emilio was standing on the stairwell, still talking on the telephone, explaining to someone that there was a truck jackknifed in front of us.

We must have been stopped for about three minutes. Then it was like an explosion when another truck suddenly slammed into us from behind. There were no seat belts on the bus, and I must have been thrown off the couch, because the next thing that I remember is lying on my back on the floor in excrucuiating pain. I had the strangest taste in my mouth, almost electrical, and I knew instantly I had broken my back. I called out, "What happened?"

Before Emilio could answer, our bus was hurled forward into a third truck. I saw our driver, Bear, reach out for Emilio as the entire front of the bus caved in. The space where Bear’s head had been a few seconds earlier was now a gaping hole, and although he was pinned helplessly behind the steering wheel, he was still alive. So much of the bus was gone that it was now snowing inside.

I was afraid to move. I couldn’t see Emilio, who had literally been pulled out of his laced tennis shoes by the force of the crash. Slowly, I realized that I was lying on the floor in a pile of debris. Emilio looked down and asked, "Baby, are you all right?"

"I think I broke my back," I said.

Frightened, Emilio insisted that my lower back had just gone out. I’ve had that happen before. "No, Babe, believe me, it’s broken," I said. "Go check the baby." I as lying there for what seemed like forever when I heard Emilio crying. What’s happened to Nayib? I thought. If Nayib was badly injured, or worse, my life was over.

A few minutes later, Emilio found Nayib on the floor, covered by shoes, purses, bags and other things that had fallen from the bunks. Nayib was clutching his shoulder. "I think it’s broken," he said. I was so glad to see him! With Nayib and Emilio alive, I knew I could manage whatever else might happen.

Yet I couldn’t shake the first thought I’d had as I opened my eyes after the crash and felt the pain in my back: My God, it’s happened. The thing that I had always feared most.

From the time I was twelve, my father had been an invalid. In the mid-sixties, he went to Vietnam and when he came home he had multiple sclerosis. Until his death in 1980, he was confined first to a wheelchair, then to his bed.

I’ve always had this gnawing fear. I insisted we install an elevator when we built our home two years ago, even though it is only two stories. Always in the back of my mind I wanted it to be there if I ever needed it. There was always this fear of something happening. Every time I would walk up steps I would take them two at a time, and I would think, Wouldn’t it be terrible if I couldn’t do this anymore?

I always attributed that fear to having lived through it with my father. The fear of being a burden, of causing pain to my family.

No, no way, I thought. This is not going to happen to me. I won’t take it. I won’t accept it.

Nayib was sitting on the bus’s couch, where I had been only a few minutes earlier, holding my hand. His presence helped me keep control. I had to do it for him. As I tried to reassure him that I was all right, I began testing my legs. First, I tried to move my feet. They moved slightly. Then my legs. Again there was some movement. I felt relieved. Even the fact that I was in pain seemed, in an old way, to be a positive sign. When you’re paralyzed you often don’t feel anything, I reasoned. I’m not going to be paralyzed.

A minute later a woman came running into the bus. She was a nurse who had been driving on the same road. "Is anyone hurt?" she shouted. "I think I’ve broken my back," I answered. "Whatever you do, don’t move," she ordered.

My pains, however, would not go away. There was the sharp one radiating from my back to my legs, and the skin on my legs was hypersensitive. Just touching it with a sheet gave the strangest sensation. When I heard we were an hour from a hospital and traffic was backed up so badly from the accident that it might take two hours for an ambulance, I couldn’t help it
– my eyes filled with tears.

Oh, my God, I thought, how am I going to hold on? Wanting to reassure myself that I wasn’t paralyzed, I had to fight the urge to move my legs and toes. The pain was like a knife. Then I remembered my Lamaze training. I picked a point on the roof of the bus and tried to concentrate to take the edge off the pain. It helped.

I lay flat on my back, holding Nayib’s hand, staring at a point on the ceiling. In the back of my mind I couldn’t escape the thought: I don’t care about money. I don’t care about anything except health. It’s the only thing I want. That’s why it can’t happen. It’s not going to happen.

When the first paramedic finally walked through the door, he asked my name. "Gloria," I answered. "Gloria Estefan." "Oh, my God, we’ve got a celebrity here," he called out. I wanted something for the pain. But they couldn’t give me anything until after the doctors examined me. The pain was almost unbearable as I was strapped onto a board and carried through the hole that used to be the windshield. I could feel the snow on my face and see people looking down at me with fear in their faces.

It was about one-thirty P.M., an hour and a half after the accident, when I finally arrived at the Community Medical Center Regional Trauma Center, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I asked for something for the pain, but there were tests that had to come first.

After X-rays and a CAT scan, the verdict was just as I had feared: I had broken a vertebra in my mid-back. The terror I had been fighting all afternoon started to creep back as I listened to the doctors explain my options. Option number one: I could be put into a body cast for six months with little hope of a full recovery. Option number two: surgery. "How many month in a body cast?" I asked. "None," they said. But surgery came with its own set of
dangers – infection and the possibility of permanent paralysis. There were some injury to the spinal nerves, they explained, but until they operated they would not be able to determine how severe.

"We’d better do the surgery," I said.

As I was thinking about what the doctors had told me, Emilio was rolled into the room in a wheelchair. He had fainted when the doctors told him I had a broken back. He was so worried about Nayib and me that he had refused to be thoroughly examined, and it wouldn’t be until a week later that we would find out he had broken a rib and separated his shoulder in the accident. I could see the pain in his eyes. There was some good news, though: Nayib had only broken his collarbone, and while it was painful, he would only have to wear a sling to hold it in place as it healed.

With my tests complete, I was finally given morphine for the pain. But this point I had tubes all over my body, in case my internal organs shut down in reaction to my broken back. Although the painkillers worked at first, it never seemed to last until the next dose was scheduled. I began a horrible cycle of pain and painkillers.

As soon as I decided to have surgery, Emilio got on the phone and called everyone we knew who could help us find the right surgeon. We chose Dr. Michael Neuwirth at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York. It was a difficult decision. I didn’t want the doctors in Scranton to feel I didn’t trust them, but I wanted a surgeon who did this operation daily. The next day, I was helicoptered to New York City.

The surgery was planned for eight-thirty the next morning. As Dr. Neuwirth explained it, during the operation he would insert two 8-inch metal rods on either side of my broken vertebra. The rods would be attached to healthy vertebrae above and below the injured area. This would allow room for bone from the broken vertebra to move back into place and relieve the pressure it was putting on my spinal cord. Then, through the same incision, bone would be removed from my pelvis, ground up and inserted along the length of the rods. This ground bone and fragments of broken vertebrae would eventually heal and fuse the injured area. Throughout the operation, I would be covered with electrodes to monitor the extent of my nerve function. If everything went well, I could expect to eventually regain 95 to 100 percent of my mobility.

Two days after the accident, my family followed my bed down the hallway from my hospital room to surgery.

The next thing I remember, everyone was calling, "Gloria, Gloria." For a minute I thought I was back at the Grammys or the American Music Award and the photographers were trying to get my attention. When I opened my eyes, I was in the recovery room. The doctors were trying to wake me to make sure I was coming out of the anesthetic. Dr. Neuwirth was saying that the operation was a success. I was going to be fine. Then I saw the smile on Emilio’s face and I really knew I was okay. I felt like I had been in a train wreck, but compared to the past two days, this pain was bearable.

I was happy but exhausted. For the first time since the accident I was able to sleep. When Nayib came to see me, he brought me a crayon drawing he’d done. I was lying on the bed and there was a bubble coming out of my mouth with the word pain.

The day after the operation, I tried to raise my head up from my pillow and the road back to recovery began. The day after that, I clutched a nurse who was trying to help me sit up to dangle my legs over the side of the bed. It was an awful feeling. The whole room was spinning and I was nauseated. I had no balance. I was weak. A few days later, when I stood up for the first time, my legs were so shaky I felt like a newborn pony. Before the accident, I’d been in great shape, exercising daily, but when I looked down at my thighs, they already seemed thinner than my calves.

Looking back, one of the oddest sensations was hearing about my ordeal every night on television. I didn’t know so many people cared. That first night, I watched as Mary Hart told Arsenio Hall about the accident. Arsenio looked toward the camera and said, "Gloria, I hope you’re feeling better." Even President Bush called.

The response from my fans was wonderful. I received four thousand flower arrangements and more than forty-eight thousand cards. I distributed the flowers to other patients and to the AIDS ward at the local V.A. hospital.

On Wednesday, April 4, Julio Iglesias lent us hi private plane for our trip home to Miami. When we reached the airport, there was a crowd of photographers, reporters and – in the distance – about three hundred fans. I wanted to wipe out the vision of me being carried form the bus strapped to a board, so I decided to walk down the steps instead of being lowered to the ground in my wheelchair. I was excited. I was still in a lot of pain, but I was ready to be home.

In the hospital, every day was filled with firsts – the first walk, the first time I climbed a few steps – but being home was very difficult. I couldn’t do anything for myself, and I had to depend on Emilio for everything. I felt like a burden. Some days it seemed I was just trudging along and I would never be able to do anything again.

The doctors have predicted a full recovery for me, although they say I can never sky-dive, play football or do back flips. Those aren’t high on my list of priorities, however, so I’m not worried!

I have physical therapy three days a week, from eleven A.M. to five P.M. First a personal trainer helps me work out at home in the swimming pool and do exercises geared toward strengthening my arms and legs. Then Emilio drives me to a therapist who uses massage to speed my recovery. When I ride in the car or walk for any distance, I still have to wear a back brace for support. Yet every day there are new things I can do.

My triumphs all are the littlest things. The day Ladies’ Home Journal came to take pictures of me, for instance, was the first day I wore high heels since the accident! Being able to wash my face in the sink by bending over. Putting on my shoes or my underwear. I can’t yet put my full weight on my left foot; that will be my next achievement.

As good as I look on the outside, it is difficult to tell what is going on inside. Emilio jokingly calls me "Robocop," because of all my high-tech replacement parts. We do want more children, but it would be really bad timing to get pregnant now; it will take at least a year for my back to heal completely.

I was planning to take a year off and try to get pregnant when we finished our tour. Now that’s all on hold. And by the time I’m healed, I should be back out on the road again. I think as soon as we finish that next tour, we’ll take time off to have another child.

Emilio would really love a little girl, but we’d both be happy with a son or a daughter, as long as it was healthy. I want to make sure our baby has every chance. We’re both still young enough, and it’s nothing that can’t wait another year. I’m lucky to be walking; everything else can wait.

Right now my goal is to be back in concert, as good as ever, by January. That is what I’m working toward. I don’t plan on this changing my stage routine – I will still, I hope, be able to dance and move spontaneously, as the music inspires me. I will go back on the road again, but from now on, the bus will have restraints and seat belts. I am still terribly nervous in a car. I can’t stop looking in the rearview mirror. I keep thinking that when we were hit we were so very vulnerable.

Yet, ironically, I’m more relaxed now. I was always thinking things were going too well. Something was going to happen – and now it has. I figure I’m good for another few years. And after such pain, I’m enjoying every second; every little things is just that much more fun. When I think of what could have happened, I feel better – and luckier – every day.

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Vielen herzlichen Dank an Amanda Warnock für diese Zeitschrift. Many warm thanks to Amanda Warnock for this magazine.

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