Aaron Last/Storm Photos

Bird Adds Personal Touch

Jeff Wilson, storm.wnba.com | July 23, 2008

Danielle Sanderson dreamed of meeting Seattle Storm guard Sue Bird. To fulfill this dream, Sanderson, 16, had to go through a nightmare.

On Oct. 30, 2007, Sanderson and five of her friends piled into a car in Olympia. Two in the front, four in the back. The four in the back soon realized there were not enough seat belts and figured that it was not safe. Seconds later, though, their car was hit and the driver swerved. One of the back doors opened and all four in the back were ejected from the car.

One passenger had brain surgery, another was in a coma for about four days and a third passenger was ran over by the car but walked away from the accident not seriously injured.

Sanderson ended up in a coma for nearly a month with a cracked vertebra. Doctors weren�t sure if she would be a quadriplegic and believed that she wouldn�t survive.

When she awoke from her coma, she could not see. She remained on life support. Doctors again warned her family to be ready to put her in a rest home in a vegetative state.

She has beaten all those odds today.

�I don�t believe in luck or anything like that. I believe it was the glory of the good Lord that she is here today,� said Cassaundra Martinelli, Sanderson�s grandmother.

�The day the doctors were going to move her life support to her trachea, they gave her a test and she was breathing on her own,� said Tamara Pinero, Sanderson�s aunt. �Every time they say there is a possibility really high that this will never happen, she proved them wrong.�

KING5 COVERAGE
Check out Chris Egan's story for KING5 on Danielle Sanderson meeting Sue Bird.
Sanderson�s love for basketball started when she was young. Ever since Pinero can remember she said Sanderson had a basketball in her hand. She played in junior high but didn�t make the cut for her high school team her freshman year.

�She played all summer (before the accident),� said Pinero. �She was pretty much guaranteed a spot on the team as a sophomore. Then two weeks before (the season) she got in her accident.�

Sanderson has a hard time walking now and sometimes needs to use a wheel chair. Her love for the game hasn�t changed, however. One of Sanderson�s most cherished basketball memories is an autographed photo of Bird, a perennial All-Star and U.S. Olympian. A fan of four years, Sanderson had never been to a Storm game but had talked about going with her friends before the accident. Her biological mom had given her the picture, but somewhere between shuffling from the houses of Pinero and Martinelli, the picture was lost.

�We are not really quite sure what happened with it,� said Pinero. �It was horrible. That was the end of everything. How are we ever going to replace that?�

On June 20, a day after her 16th birthday, Sanderson, Pinero, Matinelli and Sanderson�s friend Athena all attended their first Storm game. Sanderson thought they were going to just watch the Storm play. She was in for a big surprise.

�Dude, there are no words for this,� said Sanderson. �It was the ballerest thing in the world.�

Bird showed up before the game and surprised Sanderson. Sanderson had no idea that Bird was even going to be there.

�We all told her Sue Bird probably wasn�t going to be here,� said Martinelli. �We wanted her to be excited.�

Bird had learned of Sanderson�s situation and wanted to meet her and give her a new signed photo. She also gave her a signed jersey and posed for pictures with Sanderson and Athena.

�I was ecstatic (when I met her),� said Sanderson.

�What Danielle has been through, it really puts things into prespective,� said Bird. �It really makes you appreciate things.�

Pinero said she has never seen her niece speechless before but in front of Bird, all Sanderson could do was stare and smile.