UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 2, Page 10
September 12, 1991
United Way; Agencies contributed to recovery after accident

     Thanks to the United Way I saw the sparkle return to my son's
eyes. To this day he doesn't remember the accident. All he
remembers is getting better."
     The speaker is Deborah Bradley, office coordinator in the
Department of Music, who attributes the help of several United Way
agencies to the recovery of her son, Daniel, at age 4, from a
tragic automobile accident.
     Bradley and her two sons were involved in the accident shortly
before Christmas in 1979. Daniel, who was 3 at the time, suffered
a fractured pelvis and had to have emergency surgery for a ruptured
spleen. He was in a body cast from his mid-chest to his toes for
almost 17 weeks. He was unable to bend his body at the waist, hip
or knees.
     Muscular atrophy resulted, and he needed extensive therapy to
restore the use of his body. He, literally, had to learn to walk
all over again. But, as his mother watched his physical progress,
she saw that he was getting something more: Thanks to United Way
agencies his spirit was restored, too.
     Here's how the United Way helped.
     "When we knew Daniel was coming home from the hospital, I
called the United Way to see if there was any way we could get a
hospital bed for him," Bradley recalls. "At that time, there was a
cooperative Durable Medical Equipment Plan between the United Way
and the A.I. du Pont Institute.
     "One very icy night, two United Way workers braved the sleet
to carry the bed all the way up several flights of stairs to our
apartment. It was four days before Christmas, and the kindness of
these people really touched our hearts. They stayed and put the bed
together, showed us how to use it and how to move Daniel."
     After his cast was removed, Daniel, who had celebrated his
fourth birthday in the intensive care unit, worked for several
months with the staff at the Delaware Curative Workshop, another
United Way agency. Bradley, who had been off work for months to
care for him, had to return to work for financial reasons. She
worried about day care for her son and worried about his
discouraged state of mind.
     She found an answer at a third United Way agency-the Girls'
Club of Wilmington.
     "The counselors there were really able to pull him out of his
shell," she recalled. "They found ways to get him involved in
activities, and they discovered his special abilities in art. It
really gave me peace of mind. Working mothers face enough
challenges when their children are in good health, but when a child
is ill--well, I just really don't know how I would have done it
without the support from the Girls Club and the Curative Workshop.
They worked around my schedule, and they were really dynamite
people. It's not like I could have just left him in any day care.
He had special needs."
     Today, Daniel is months away from his 16th birthday and his
health and self-esteem are intact. He is majoring in technical
drafting at Delcastle Technical High School, a hold over, his
mother says, from those days when the counselors at the Girls' Club
discovered his artistic talent.
     Bradley is serving as the United Way representative for the
music department and said, "I just couldn't wait to become
involved. Those United Way agencies are the champions of our kids
and so much that they do goes unnoticed. There is so much available
to us from the United Way, and it's all just a phone call away.
     "United Way agencies had a long-term effect on Daniel's
recovery and his sense of well being and it didn't cost me
anything. They had a permanent impact on our lives, and we really
had a tremendous experience out of something so negative."
                                        - Beth Thomas

Editor's note: The University United Way Campaign will be conducted
from Oct. 14 -25. For more information, call Joyce Dennis at
451-2171.