.jpg)
She recalls waking up in University Hospital to the news that she had been in a terrible car accident. “The doctor came in and said, ‘You sustained a lot of injuries that most people wouldn’t make it through,’” said Gamble, who recently became the clinical education coordinator at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine.
Gamble works with medical students as they complete their clinical rotations during their third and fourth years of medical school. Her office is located in the Mastin Building, next door to the hospital that saved her life. “I’m happy to be a part of these students’ lives who are going out and being great,” she said.
On the night of the accident, she had been riding with her then-boyfriend in his burgundy Corvette when he lost control of the car, slamming into a parked vehicle at an auto dealership. The passenger side – and Gamble’s body – took the brunt of the impact.
She sustained eight broken ribs, a broken pelvis, a skull fracture and damage to her spinal cord, and was placed in a medically induced coma for two weeks.
“There are two plates and four screws holding my pelvis together,” Gamble said. “My parents were told I’d be bedridden.”
At the time of the accident, she was employed in the payroll department at the University of South Alabama and had just re-enrolled in courses to work toward an MBA. But that dream had to be put on hold.
“I moved back in with my parents,” she said. “I couldn’t get around or go anywhere. It was kind of depressing at times.”
Confined to a wheelchair and unable to move one of her legs, Gamble began the slow process of rehab. Occupational therapists came to the house to teach her ways to function more independently. She didn’t realize at the time that few people expected her to walk again.
“In my mind, I thought, ‘I’ll get out of this wheelchair,’” she recalled. “But one day we were watching TV, and my leg jumped. I moved it again to make sure, and my mom was so shocked.”
It wasn’t long before she was defying the odds and was on her way to walking. In 2016, she earned her MBA from Columbia Southern University. Although she had to have surgery on her wrist and still suffers from chronic pain, she is grateful for her recovery.
“I don’t take any credit for getting better,” she said. “I give all the glory to God.”
