One year ago, Caitlin Jensen visited a Georgia chiropractor for a neck adjustment and left in an ambulance. The 29-year-old has been in and out of hospitals and rehab centres ever since. Sheila Flynn reports

he night before the anniversary of a routine chiropractor visit that left her daughter with a brain injury, Darlene Jensen sat up watching videos taken in the months immediately following the fateful day last June that would forever change both their lives.

Her daughter, 28-year-old Caitlin, had been fit and healthy, looking forward to working in the science field after graduating with a degree in chemistry and biology, when she arrived at the Georgia chiropractor’s office on 16 June 2022. Within 20 minutes, her future would be hanging precariously; Caitlin suffered a vertebral artery dissection, which causes stroke – cutting off blood flow to the brain. 

Ms Jensen, now 50, arrived at the chiropractor’s office after being told on the phone that something was amiss, and Caitlin was already in an ambulance — but her mother never could have fathomed that the trip to the ER would be the very beginning of a long, arduous and ongoing journey through hospitals and rehabilitation centres.

Emotional and exhausted as she speaks on the anniversary of that day, Ms Jensen tells The Independent that watching footage from last summer reminded her of just how far Caitlin has come — though much progress remains to be made. She’s seen a major difference in “her eyes, especially”.

“I forget how, when her injury first occurred, her eyes were turned inward, both of them, like toward each other — and she had very little vision,” Ms Jensen says. “And we didn’t know if that was going to be permanent. I mean, looking at the videos, it almost looks like she is blind — and she was, kind of, for a little bit, because they were turned inward, so it was difficult for her to see with both eyes.”

Now, however, Caitlin “can focus better — she can look more directly at you,” her mother says. “Her left eye is not turned inwardly at all; her right eye is barely turned inward, if at all — and, most importantly, through therapy and doing her exercises, her eyes are finally beginning to work together again. And that’s a really big milestone.”

The past year has been filled with small triumphs and setbacks, therapy and tests, and a veritable mental and emotional rollercoaster ride.

“What Caitlin says is, ‘The best therapy is time,’” her mother tells The Independent. “And she’s right … the best therapy has been time, and that’s what they told us at the beginning — that it was going to be a long road, it’s going to take a long time, but that you can make progress, but that you can make progress, and that has proven to be the case.”

According to a 2021 piece published in Stroke: Vascular and Interventional Neurology, vertebral arterial dissection “can result from trauma of varying severities ‐ from sports, motor vehicle accidents, and chiropractor neck manipulations to violent coughing/sneezing.

“It is estimated that 1 in 20,000 spinal manipulation results in vertebral artery aneurysm/dissection. In the United States, patients who have multiple chronic conditions are reporting higher use of complementary or alternative medicine, including chiropractic manipulation,” the report states.

“Education about the association of VAD and chiropractor revitalizechiro.com maneuvers can be beneficial to the public as these are preventable acute ischemic strokes. In addition, vertebral artery dissection symptoms can be subtle and patients presenting to chiropractors may have distracting pain masking their deficits.”

Chiropractors argue that dissection itself can be the cause of the pain leading patients to seek care — claiming their own adjustments were ancillary to a larger problem in many cases.

Caitlin and her mother had no idea there were risks associated with chiropractor adjustments, her mother tells The Independent — but have been horrified to hear from other families similarly impacted. It has become something of a mission for Ms Jensen to raise awareness about the dangers.

“There have been many people that have contacted me, and I would like to sit down and make a list of everyone and kind of bring everybody together with this, because there have been a lot of people that have contacted me,” Ms Jensen says. “I got a message this week from another lady that had the exact same thing happen to her … It makes me sad when I get a message like that, because I don’t like that there are so many people out there that have had this happen to them.

“But at the same time, I think Caitlin’s story can get out there and stay out there, that maybe it will help save other people.”

She says that, “from the time this happened … every doctor that we’ve had has, unfortunately, seen these injuries before and are very well aware.”

The general public, however, remains largely ignorant, in her experience.

“People are pretty bold in saying, ‘Well, what happened to her?’” Ms Jensen says, explaining how she’ll get approached in elevators and all manner of locations by strangers querying her wheelchair-bound daughter’s condition. “And I’ll tell them, and their eyes will get wide — and I haven’t had a single person that’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that happening.’

She says: “I will tell anybody that will listen, what happens if they will then take that and tell someone else and just get the awareness out there.”

Family, friends and the wider community have rallied around the Jensens. In February, they moved into a specially-outfitted three-bedroom ranch home, complete with ramps and full wheelchair access. Their neighbours include a paramedic and nurse practitioner — which proved hugely fortuitous when disaster struck, yet again, just days after the family took up residence in the new home.

Caitlin suffered a fall when her wheelchair tipped over, and Darlene can barely get the words out, months later, to describe the terror she felt.

“I panicked, which also upsets me – that I even allowed myself to panic – but I just started screaming ‘Help!’” she says. “The neighbors were so fast; they ran right over. It turns out the man that was out there had been a paramedic for many years … and they were really fantastic and helped get her just kind of stable. I put a pillow under her while we’re waiting for the ambulance to get there, which was very, very fast.

“That was one of the deciding factors in choosing this home … the proximity to our local EMS station is less than half a mile away,” she says.

The accident sent Caitlin back to the ICU with a brain bleed, her mother posting a photo of her in the hospital bad with a caption that began: “This is not the homecoming update that I had planned to share tonight.”

Following scans, staples, blood thinners and treatments, Caitlin eventually returned home as the community that had organized to prepare the home now turned their talents to setting up a meal train.

“You know, I’ve heard of meal trains and that type of thing, but I’ve never really paid much attention to them,” Ms Jensen says. “But let me tell you, a meal train for someone that is in this kind of situation is so meaningful and helpful. On a practical level, people would drop off meals, and with a little note or a little flower, that kind of thing. And it was really wonderful.”