By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter
Even though Sue Quinn never got her official time and had to go to extra lengths to get the coveted event T-shirt when she and friend Linda Chasse crossed the finish line of the 35th annual Bloomsday road race a few weeks ago, there was a sense of victory.
Covering the 7.46 miles was a relatively short distance when compared to the journey Quinn's been on the last 12 years since she was told she would likely never walk again.
Quinn's spent much of the past decade enduring over a dozen surgeries and painful therapy all as result of a mysterious single-car crash on Cheney-Spangle Road on June 17, 1999.
Details are still sketchy to this day. Quinn says all she knows is her car veered off the pavement and hit an embankment head-on. Quinn's husband Bob, a professor at Eastern Washington University, recalled how neighbor Jim Emtman happened upon the scene to assist and comfort his wife.
Quinn recalled doing a variety of errands earlier in the day, but nothing after her car left the road. “I never got home for a couple of weeks,” after having her left foot severed, a compound fracture of her right foot, two broken legs and a broken hip.
Her journey to join nearly 57,000 others in Bloomsday began simply as Quinn tried to circle the indoor track at Eastern's University Rec Center. That's where she met personal trainer Matt Proctor who watched her struggle walking down the steps from the track. He asked if she'd thought of using a personal trainer.
“I thought about if but hadn't done it,” Quinn said. “He promised he could increase my mobility.” Quinn said she's “eternally grateful to him because without him I couldn't even walk up the steps at the Rec Center and now I can walk up one step at a time.” To show her appreciation, Proctor was honored by Quinn at a surprise gathering of friends and family at the Rec Center.
Doing Bloomsday had been Quinn's goal since her accident. “I told my orthopedist I was going to do it and he thought I was stupid,” Quinn said. She told her doc that she was smart enough to know if she couldn't finish she'd find a good place to stop and call her husband. Quinn did take her walker, she said, “Because I thought I might need it for stability.”
The thrill of the long-in-coming personal victory was soured by what happened – or didn't happen – at the finish.
At the bottom of Doomsday Hill a policeman rode up on a motorcycle and asked if Quinn planned to finish. “I was joking with him and said ‘I didn't come out here to not finish,” Quinn said. “You tell them we're coming and to save our T-shirts,” she told the police officer. “I'll do that,” he told her, but Quinn would later find out the message never got where it needed to go.
Because of her slow pace, the streets soon had to be reclaimed by automobile traffic. The most crushing thing was at the finish line just north of the Monroe Street Bridge. By the time she and Chasse arrived the finish line chutes had been removed.
“I was devastated,” Quinn said, her voice cracking with the emotion of the moment. “Some girl namesdMargarita – I'll never forget her name – told us ‘you can stop now, you've already crossed the finish line.'”
Her new-found-friend, Margarita, said she'd take a photo showing that Quinn and Chasse had finished. “I worked so hard for this and it sure took the wind out of this old lady's sail,” she said.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
Bloomsday's permit limits course closure time
Bloomsday's executive director and race founder Don Kardong appreciates the hard work Sue Quinn put into finishing this year's race.
“We certainly respect her and I know she's challenged trying to get through that course.” Quinn should be proud of having completed the race he said. “I know there are a lot of people where it takes them a while to get through there so we try to stay out there as long as we can.”
But he also points out, “We do tell people that the course closes at 1:30,” and that the time is posted on the website, on the race numbers and in a variety of other places. That's according to the permit Bloomsday is issued from the city of Spokane, but Kardong said, “We kind of fudge it a little bit and keep it open until about 2:30.”
Finish line volunteers begin staffing their post as early as 4 a.m. so “Eventually we have to let them go,” Kardong explained. “We know there are people that are going to need to be out there longer but we just can't be out there the entire day.”
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