Chris Oberle

Dear Dearest Friends and Family of Chris Oberle,

Thank you all for you outpouring of love and support for Chris Oberle, Anna Haudenschild, the Oberle and Haudenschild family. Many of you may know by now that Chris Oberle was in a traumatic mountain biking accident.

On Saturday April 28th, Chris was biking in the Santa Monica Mountains by himself down a regular single track bike trail that unexpectedly ended at a ledge that he fell off of about 10' into a ditch. There was no sign to mark the end of the trail. Fortunately a man saw him the moment he fell and was there to Chris's side to call for help immediately.

Chris was rushed to the UCLA Emergency room where we found out that aside from a punctured lung, breaking a few ribs and injuring his shoulder, he had gravely injured his spinal cord. Initially we were told that he had a transected spinal cord, and our understanding continues to be clarified but at the moment we know there has been tremendous damage to the spinal cord. He had a seven hour surgery on Saturday night where two metal rods were placed in his back in order to stabilize his spinal cord and put it back into place because his vertebrae in that area was destroyed. This has left Chris with no feeling from approximately the belly button down. The doctors have said that the chance is slim that Chris will regain feeling below his waist, but because of trauma to the spinal cord it is very swollen and until the swelling has gone down the actual extent of the damage cannot be certain. This swelling will take around a year to go away. We all need to have faith and strength that he will be able to recover. As an Oberle, Chris is a born fighter and we as a family are giving him all our positive energy and strength and sharing with him all the powerful love and energy that you have shared with us. This is a moment that has changed his and so many of our lives forever.

Currently Chris is in the Intensive Care Unit, where it appears he will be for a few more days and is limited to visits of family members. The doctors do not have much they can do for Chris at this point aside from giving him time to heal from his secondary injuries so that he may begin to work on the damage caused by his crushed spinal cord in order to allow him to begin physical therapy, which we are all anxious to start. Chris is awake, lucid and the funny and absolutely adorable man and friend we all love and know him as. As you might imagine, this has been more than devastating to us all as a family, but we have been sharing with him all your messages of love and support for him, which have meant the world to him and to us.

If you would like to visit Chris, I will be sending out an email when he is out of ICU and in a more welcoming environment where I know he would love to see friends, it would mean so much to us all. In the meantime, we ask for all your thoughts, prayers and positive energy of recovery for Chris through this difficult time and the year ahead, we will need your encouragement and visits through the year. Please send this email to those I was not able to reach and email me if you would like me to send you an update as to when Chris is ready for visitors. A great friend thought to establish an email group that can be used as a forum for information pertaining to Chris' progress, I will let you know if and when that gets started up. He will need us all in a month from now and a year from now just as much as he does today. We believe he will be out of the ICU and into a regular room by next week more ready for visitors.

With great love, faith and hope in our hearts,

Rita Haudenschild

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rhaudenschild@gmail.com