With her hip and ankle shattered, Kimberley Wynn lay on a backboard deep in Peru’s rainforest last summer and made up her mind to get back on her feet.
“I just remember thinking, I might never walk again,” the 64-year-old from Rowlett says, recalling the fall during her cruise through the Amazon. “But then I thought, I’m going to. I have a family. I have grandbabies.”
Her son’s wedding was five months away, and Kimberley was determined to do more than walk.
“My son is getting married in October,” she told her doctor, once she was back in the U.S. “I want to dance with him.”
Her determination, along with her team at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, made that dream a reality.
“They asked me my goal,” Kimberley says, “and they said, ‘We’ll get you there.’”
‘SOMETHING WAS VERY WRONG’
For Kimberley, travel has always been about more than the destination. It’s about adventure and family. Her love of travel was inspired by her mother and sister.
“My mom always said, ‘I want you two to travel,’” Kimberley recalls. “There were so many trips I couldn’t go on when my kids were young. Later on, my sister and I started taking those trips together.”
The sisters had already traveled to Kenya and Uganda, experiences she treasured deeply. So when her sister suggested an Amazon River cruise, Kimberley didn’t hesitate. Four women — sisters, an aunt, and a cousin — boarded the ship in Peru, eager for daily excursions.
The day of her fall, rain passed through the region. Crew members wiped down surfaces as best they could, but it wasn’t enough.
“When I stepped, my right foot went out from under me, and there were no handrails on my side,” Kimberley says. “It was cartoonish, like it was happening in slow motion. I didn’t even feel the pain at first. I just knew something was very wrong.”
Then her aunt, a retired registered nurse, spoke the words that would hang in the air.
“She said, ‘Don’t move her. Her hip is broken,’” Kimberley remembers.
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FLYING BACK TO THE STATES
Being in the middle of the jungle complicated Kimberley’s immediate care. She was transported by boat and ambulance to a small clinic in Iquitos, Peru.
The facility was simple with white walls and limited equipment, nothing like the hospitals she knew back home. A physician reviewed her X-rays and offered surgery.
“I just wanted to go home,” she says.
When an air ambulance finally arrived, an experienced paramedic and registered nurse carefully managed her pain on the long journey back: first to Belize, then to Dallas.
When the ambulance doors opened at Methodist Dallas, Kimberley saw her husband for the first time since the accident.
“That’s when it became very real,” she says, remembering the moment with tears streaming down her face.
Kimberley was determined to make a full recovery, for her own sake and her “grandbabies.”
COMPLEX HIP REPLACEMENT
The severity of Kimberley’s injuries was immediately apparent to Edgar Araiza, MD, an orthopedic surgeon on the medical staff at Methodist Dallas.
“Hip fractures are usually isolated injuries,” he says. “But she also had a dislocated ankle, and she traveled across a continent with both.”
Kimberley had shattered the top of her femur, broken and dislocated her left ankle as well. The ankle injury on the same side as the broken hip complicated, Dr. Araiza says.
“When a joint is both fractured and dislocated, you don’t just damage the bone,” he explains. “You damage the skin, the muscles, and the surrounding tissues. That automatically increases the length and difficulty of recovery.”
Kimberley says her husband, Robert, was her rock during her recovery.
Before surgery, Dr. Araiza asked Kimberley a simple question: “What’s your goal?”
She told him about her son’s wedding and how she wanted to join him on the dance floor. Her determination mattered, Dr. Araiza says.
“I knew she was going to push herself,” he says. “So I wanted to give her something definitive, something that wouldn’t rely on waiting to see if a fracture healed.”
Instead of spacing surgeries months apart, he developed a plan to stabilize her ankle and perform a complex hip replacement.
“Both injuries on their own are difficult,” he says. “Together, the stakes are much higher.”
FROM SITTING TO DANCING
The surgery lasted four hours and required plates, cables, rods, and screws. Kimberley later joked about the distinctive plate in her hip.
“It looks like a spaghetti spoon,” she laughs.
When Kimberley was finally cleared to sit up, after weeks in bed, six hours in a chair felt monumental.
“That was the first time I’d been upright since the accident,” she says.
Physical therapy followed, months of careful movement, patience, and persistence.
Five months after her fall, Kimberley danced with her son at his wedding.
“I told myself, I will dance with my son,” Kimberley says. “That’s what kept me going.”
In October, she stood — without a boot, without a walker — and danced at her son’s wedding to “Dear Mama” by country artist Richie Allen.
“He sang the song in my ear,” Kimberley says softly. “It was one of the most special moments of my life.”
And yes, she does plan to go on more adventures with her sister — and her brand-new hip.
“I will travel again,” Kimberly says. “Don’t let fear take away what you love. Be prepared and don’t stop living.”
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