Hope for any age or reason for apraxia

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Once left for dead, Sonya is now rebuilding her life

Dusty Compton | Tuscaloosa News

By Stanton Special to The Tuscaloosa News

Published: Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.

She wasn't expected to live, much less walk and talk. Yet a local nurse attacked

with a hammer and left in her bathtub to die three years ago can now climb

stairs and read a menu.

Soon, she may even start earning money using her cross-stitching skills.

“It's a miracle. You can't put it any other way,” said Sonya 's mother,

Nona Woods, of her daughter's recovery. “The Lord did it because he has

something in mind for her. He has a purpose.”

says she tries not to dwell on the night her ex-boyfriend,

McKinley Brasfield, broke into her Northport apartment and struck her more than

30 times with the claw end of a hammer. But she admits she still has nightmares

about the August 5, 2007 attack, and Woods says neither of their lives will ever

be the same.

“She wants to go back to work as a nurse, and she wants to be able to drive a

car,” Woods said. “But that part of her life is not what it was, and we have to

take things one day at a time.”

Brasfield was convicted of attempted murder last summer, and sentenced to life

in prison with the possibility of parole.

According to reports, he broke in through a window while , a registered

nurse then working as a nurse manager at DCH Regional Medical Center, was

working a night shift.

Authorities said he was waiting for her when she came home, then began beating

her with the claw-end of a hammer, tearing out chunks of her brain and taking a

break to drink a beer before dragging her to her bathroom and threatening to cut

off her legs.

She was found several hours later and rushed to the hospital. But surgeons were

so sure she wouldn't survive that they sewed up her fractured skull without

pausing to clean it. Weeks later, when she opened her eyes and it became

apparent she would live, experts told Woods that severe brain damage would keep

her from walking or talking.

Woods thinks the fact that she now can do both proves the experts wrong.

“They said she wouldn't, and I don't know how she does,” she said. “But she's

very determined.”

does speak, but the beating caused a condition called apraxia, so she

often has trouble expressing herself; the words in her head don't always sound

the same once they come out of her mouth.

But she can communicate, and Woods said she and go to stores and love to

eat out. They also attend local meetings of Victims of Crime and Leniency, or

VOCAL, an advocacy group for victims of violence.

spends a good deal of time in rehabilitation. Woods said Ann Crocker,

with the Alabama Department of Rehabilitation Services, helped her daughter turn

a childhood hobby into an occupation.

Crocker and some of 's friends and family give her cross-stitching

supplies, and Crocker has helped turn photocopies of her work into cards

to be sold in the DCH gift shop.

has created 29 detailed cross-stitch pieces, many of them depicting

fairies and butterflies, since she reclaimed her needle in April 2009, and

Crocker said it wasn't difficult to find a way to put them to work. But she

believes the effort means just as much as the money they might bring in. Crocker

said she expects the greeting cards to sell in packs of five for about ten

dollars.

“It's a wonderful, productive activity that takes a tremendous amount of

patience and skill,” said Crocker, who is the traumatic brain injury care

coordinator for west central Alabama. “And I don't think anybody would have

predicted that she would be doing this well.”

Woods said the help and prayers from friends, family and 's former DCH

co-workers have a big impact on her daughter's recovery. said she works

hard to ensure that she's able to spend time with her 8- and 11-year-old sons.

The boys live with their father but frequently spend days and nights with

and Woods. says that's all the motivation she needs to continue with the

rehabilitation and the treatments, such as Botox shots in her legs, that help

her get around. She knows she's lucky to have survived.

“We are only here a short time and you need to make the most of what ever your

life is,” Woods wrote in an e-mail on 's behalf. “Go forward ... worry

about nothing, pray about everything and thank God for every thing.”

Woods thinks that gratitude and optimism is what's helped her daughter recover

to a greater extent than anyone expected.

“What happened to Sonya is what we make of it,” Woods said, adding that they

don't talk about Brasfield. “It's not what he did, but what she does.”