Dream Machine
Locals grant a wish for Hailey’s Lilly Baber to go fast
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
Left
to right, Lilly Baber, Mal Prior, Christina Etzrodt and Clara Baber. "My goal is to
just have her do as much as possible," said Prior. Express photo by Willy Cook
For as long as she’s been alive, 6-year-old Lilly Baber of Hailey
has gotten around in a wheelchair, a fact of life that has sometimes made it difficult for
her to keep up with her active friends and her older, BMX-racing sister.
But watch out! Lilly will be going a little faster and a little farther
now, thanks to her new hand-pedaled, seven-speed tricycle.
Mal Prior of Backwoods Mountain Sports presented the gleaming red speed
machine Saturday night at Ketchum’s Bob Dog Pizza amid friends, family and disabled
athletes during a Sun Valley Adaptive Sports Program fund-raiser.
Lilly was born with spina bifita, a congenital defect of the spine that
can cause varying degrees of paralysis, accumulation of fluid in the brain and bowel and
bladder complications.
In severe cases, such as Lilly’s, the spinal cord protrudes from
the back, which requires surgery immediately after birth.
Since that traumatic introduction to life, Lilly has undergone nearly
20 other surgeries. She has had eye, foot, bowel and bladder operations. She has had her
pelvis purposely broken and realigned three times. And she has had tubes and shunts
installed to drain fluid from her brain and kidneys.
One surgery last year left her unable to digest any food for a month.
During that time, her mother administered intravenous antibiotics five times a day, each
treatment taking an hour apiece.
"There have been so many complications, so many life-and-death
situations," said Lilly’s mother, Christina Etzrodt. "But Lilly’s very
strong-willed, and she’s stubborn, which is good."
Last summer, Lilly, who says, "I like when I go really fast,"
got a taste of what it might be like to be the leader of the pack when she ceremoniously
led out the first lap of a BMX race in Hailey.
"Faster!" Lilly shouted to her father, Brian, who pushed her
wheelchair. "I want to do this all by myself."
Circling the track exhilarated Lilly, perhaps because it marked the end
of her confinement to a body cast and possibly because it marked a new beginning.
"She’s been wanting to race so badly," said Lilly’s
mother. "All the kids in the neighborhood have bikes, but she can’t keep up in
her wheelchair."
Prior, who runs the BMX track, said he has been working through the
summer and fall to raise the $1,400 needed to buy the bike for Lilly.
An extra $3,600 generated from enthusiastic community support has been
deposited in a special Lilly fund, which will help defray some medical-related expenses
and possibly buy adaptive skiing equipment for Lilly.
"She’s amazing," Prior said of Lilly at Saturday’s
fund- raiser. "She puts her mind to something, and she does it."
Lilly’s uncle, Ron Theobald, "totally geeks out on her
equipment," said Lilly’s mother.
"Hey, Lil’, what do you think?" Theobald yelled above
the Bob Dog’s crowd.
It was difficult to hear in the noisy room. Lilly smiled and gave a
thumbs up.
