A doctor ended up needing a doctor herself after she plunged from the side of a mountain, falling some 300 feet. In another story, this would have spelled certain death. But miraculously, she managed to survive her fateful plunge but not without life-changing injuries.
Doctor Shirlee Xie fell to her certain death while on a hiking trip with her husband John Kriz, in the Swiss mountains. She ended up severing her spine, leaving her paralyzed from the chest down. The incident happened on September 10, 2024 between Verbier and Cabane de Louvie.
"We do one trip a year that's adults-only, and it's usually a big hiking trip," Xie told People. "The kids are good hikers, but they can't do it day after day."
"It was up at the mountain, but it was a flatter part of the trail. I was walking in front of my husband. And the trail sort of gave way, and then I started tumbling," she continued. "There wasn't anything that stopped me."
Doctor Takes Tragic Fall
After her fall, her husband John played a critical role in saving her life. He managed to get to where she fell and called emergency services. The doctor was lifeflighted to a nearby hospital. She needed a 20 hour surgery and wouldn't wake for several days later. Among her injuries was multiple fractures to her spine, a brain injury, collapsed lung, and broken ribs.
Learning she was paralyzed was something that was difficult to grasp.
"I knew that there wasn't anything that could be done to reverse it," she explained. "I think it was just like, 'This is what it is.' "Arriving back in Minnesota, she spent another week in the ICU before beginning intense rehab.
"It was at least three hours a day of physical, occupational and speech therapy," she said. "A lot of it was just learning how to put clothes on again, learning how to take a shower, learning how to brush my teeth. Physical therapy focused a lot on helping me regain use of my hands because I lost a lot of function in my hands and learning how to push myself in a wheelchair."
The doctor is thankful for the support that she has gotten from her friends and community.
"I'm taking some time off to rehab, let my body get stronger, let my brain get stronger," she says. "And then the goal will be to return to some kind of medicine by summer, I think. I can't imagine my life not practicing medicine. I don't know what else I would do."
