At 16, she had a stroke. At 17, her town burned in the Camp Fire. Now, as her community rebuilds, she’s healing thanks to hyperbaric therapy.
SACRAMENTO, Calif — February 2, 2017, started off as an ordinary day for the Pipkin Family.
Patrick and Stacey Pipkin just returned to their home in Magalia from a grocery run at Costco when they asked their youngest daughter, Sam, to help bring in a few loads from the car.
“I came back (into the house) and I set down a case of soda,” said Sam. “I stood up, and my mom was in the kitchen, and I looked at her dead in the eye and said, “There’s something wrong.”
Sam lost control of her body and fell against the door.
“The smile just left her face,” Patrick remembers. “I ran to her and I grabbed her and I told Tiffany, my middle daughter, (to) grab a chair and call 911.
Sam was rushed to the Feather River Hospital in Paradise, where doctors said they’d found a bleed in her brain.