WALKING AWAY
from a Trauma
W
ynand and Mary
Clare Egberts always
dreamed of coming to the islands.
“We had a two-week trip planned, but
the second week took an unexpected
turn,” said Wynand.
Wynand and Mary Clare Egberts
Their Hawai‘i adventure included stays
on Maui and the Big Island, right before
they reached Kaua‘i. On their second
day, Wynand and his son, Adam,
decided to try skydiving. Wynand
jumped tandem, but in the air, some-
thing went wrong.
“We had a sudden crash landing,”
Wynand said. “We fell two to three
stories from the sky.”
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The 61-year-old took the brunt of
the fall. He broke both of his ankles,
damaged his spine and was rushed to
the hospital in terrible pain. Wynand’s
wife, Mary Clare, was on her way to the
pool with Adam’s wife, Amy. The phone
rang. Looking at Amy’s face, she knew
something was wrong.
“Your heart sinks because you knew it
was a possibility, but you didn’t think it
was going to happen,” Mary Clare said.
She went immediately to Wilcox Medical
Center’s Emergency Room. There, she
reviewed her husband’s x-rays and met
with the trauma team. Mary Clare is the
president and CEO of a four-hospital
system in Canada. But in that moment,