AT SHRINERS HOSPITAL Gina Russo’s family was told to prepare for the worst.
Burn victims often die for three reasons: shock from a loss of fluids that perilously lowers blood pressure, infections, or lungs so damaged they no longer process enough oxygen.
Gina faced all three perils. Her burns were so severe that her skull was exposed. Doctors raced to replace lost fluids in a precarious balancing act—too much could cause more swelling or blood clots. She suffered a dangerous infection, and couldn’t breathe on her own. By Sunday, three days after she was pulled from the fire, her oxygen-starved organs began failing.
Doctors suggested that the entire family should come to the hospital for Gina’s final hours. A priest administered last rites. “May the Lord Jesus protect you and lead you to eternal life…”
Gina’s brother-in-law Matt Reinsant, normally a driven type-A guy, explained to Nicholas and Alex, ages six and nine, that their mother was about to go to heaven. A social worker gave Matt a card to be opened when Gina died that would explain death to the boys in words that they could understand, written at the Dr. Seuss level.
Alex asked one of his aunts to take him to the hospital’s chapel. He went in alone and prayed. When he emerged he was suddenly smiling, and explained that after his conversation with God he was confident his mother would not die.
The optimism of a child faced a grim reality. Gina continued to deteriorate.
Doctors threaded flexible fiber optic scopes into Gina’s lungs and discovered that the inside was coated with a thick tar substance that crippled her ability to take in air. With a new type of ventilator they’d never before used on a patient in this condition, doctors applied a solution of nitric acid to try to break up the tar. Within hours her organs began to show improvement. For Gina’s family it was a miracle. Doctors, however, cautioned that it was only a sign of hope, and very little at that.
TWO YEARS EARLIER Gina wondered if she’d ever have love in her life again. She’d spent her entire adult life with a man whom she determined had not loved her back, at least not enough.
She met Jim Odsen when they were in high school. After dating for four years, with a few breakups along the way, they married. Gina would look back later and wonder if those early splits were signs of trouble she should have heeded, but she was young and in love, and smitten with the idea of creating a happy wedded home. In her senior year of high school she was hired for part-time secretarial work at a local hospital, which eventually became full-time. Gina took on other jobs to help make ends meet, trying to build a life like the one she grew up with in her own family. Gina knew that marriage had its challenges. Her parents, Carol and James, endured their struggles, especially when it came to having children. They tried for ten years and had started the process of adoption when, unexpectedly, Gina’s older brother Jim was born. Within four years there were three children, with Gina in the middle. Their family bliss would not last long. At age fifty-two, Dad was diagnosed with diabetes, and seven years later he died of a heart attack. Gina was eighteen.
She remembered her parents as a devoted team, and was delighted when her mother found affection again later in life and married Vincent Richards, whom Gina had grown to love as her stepfather. The happiness of her mother’s new relationship drew more attention to the fact that Gina’s married life was so different. While Gina had multiple jobs, she often felt Jim didn’t work enough. They fought about money. Yet it was on another level that Gina thought she was getting the short end of the bargain: emotion. As years went by, Gina grew to believe that Jim couldn’t reciprocate when it came to her level of love. The emptiness between them soon evolved into resentment, resulting in bitter arguments.
“To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”
Gina thought of her vow. She couldn’t throw in the towel on her marriage—even if she wasn’t sure about Jim, she was still committed to making the relationship work. Five years into the marriage their first son, Alex James Odsen, was born. Gina hoped the new baby would change everything, yet she and Jim continued fighting, and even separated a few times. After each breakup, though, they reconciled and life would go on without too much drama, for a little while. Three years after Alex came a little brother, Nicholas. Gina was hopeful when she saw Jim being fatherly with his sons, especially when they were old enough to go on walks and play ball.
The arrival of the boys didn’t heal the couple’s deep wounds, and if anything, the problems worsened. In 1999 Gina asked for a divorce, and eventually moved with the boys into her mother and stepfather’s home. When attempts at reconciliation failed, the divorce proceedings devolved into acrimony that lasted two years. When the paperwork was finalized in July 2001, Gina felt an enormous burden lifted.
Despite the emotional exhaustion of her failed marriage, Gina wasn’t about to completely give up on men. But by the beginning of 2002, at age thirty-four, it had been nearly two decades since she’d last dated anyone. Gina wondered, how do you find a guy these days? Probably not in a bar, her friends said. Besides, technology and the Internet had upended the whole idea of dating since the last time Gina looked for a boyfriend. With the help and encouragement of her friend Trish, Gina created a profile on HipDates.com.
It was hardly a panacea, and Gina soon learned the painful truth about online dating: the odds are good, but the goods are odd. Gina received inquiries almost immediately, but didn’t click with any of the guys. On April 28, when a man arrived at their dinner date in Providence via public bus, Gina was done. What type of guy doesn’t even own a car? She lived in the suburbs of Cranston, with kids no less. Was she going to give him rides every time they went somewhere? She was about to deactivate her account on May 2 when she saw the note from Fred Crisostomi, a big grizzly of a guy who owned his own painting business.
Moments later Fred happened to sign on live to the site at the same moment and sent Gina an instant message. “Did you copy my profile?” he jokingly asked as his opening line.
Gina grinned as she read Fred’s description page. Sure enough, they had so much in common, sharing the same answers to so many of the website’s get-to-know-you questions. Gina decided to take a chance and instant-messaged Fred back, and so began the chat session that would change her life.
IT WASN’T A fluke.
The new ventilator with the nitric acid had worked to break up the tar coating in Gina’s lungs, and now doctors at Shriners wondered if they’d discovered a breakthrough treatment that could be used on other burn patients. For Gina the progress was slow, but within a week her organs, no longer oxygen-starved to the point of failure, were able to perform sufficiently on their own. The progress was remarkable, even though her lungs remained so damaged that she couldn’t breathe on her own. She required ongoing intubation and the use of a ventilator.
Now relatively stable, there was chance of survival. That meant it was time to deal with the burns, and dead skin needed to be removed and replaced with healthy skin grafted from other parts of her body, an agonizing process. If not done soon the necrosis could spread, and Gina risked having her limbs amputated.
Doctors didn’t want Gina to feel the pain of the gruesome and protracted procedures ahead, so they placed her in a medically induced coma, pushing her consciousness into a dark void from which she might never emerge.