Stefani Perdue -- the 'miracle' skater

Sep. 10—Stefani Perdue didn't know where she was.

It was a small difference of about 10 minutes between when Perdue, 19, answered her phone to let her mother, Michele Gutierrez, know that she was just fine after a session with friends at the skatepark, and when she called her mother back in a state of confusion.

When her mother and stepfather arrived at Brimmer Park, Perdue was wandering in the grass. They called her name, to which she turned and responded that she didn't know what was going on.

At the hospital, doctors suspected the effects of alcohol poisoning, drug use or head trauma from that night's session at the skate park.

Today, she's at Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colorado, in the early stages of learning to move the right side of her body, speak, and eat and drink, a small cap covering the spot in her skull that the neurosurgeons had to cut away.

"Before I knew it, this neurosurgeon was already there at the hospital, and they said they had hurried and got him up there," Gutierrez said. "He was going in and removing the 'cap' part of the skull to relieve the pressure off of her brain to try and clean up some of the blood, because it ruptured."

Perdue is local Cheyenne skateboarder, who learned of her rare medical condition in late July suddenly and harshly, as most with arteriovenous malformation (AVM) do. After a skateboarding session with her friends, she rose suddenly and walked off.

The cause was an AVM rupture — the hemorrhage of clumped and tangled blood vessels connecting veins and arteries in the brain, resulting in a brain bleed and, in Perdue's case, a violent stroke. It occurred in the left side of her brain, damaging function on the right side of her body as a result.

She can lift her leg, wiggle her shoulder, but she cannot move her right arm or hand. It took some time before the right side of her throat would respond to swallowing food. They warn her parents of regularly occurring seizures due to the injury.

But she's getting dressed on her own, showering, chewing chopped food, operating her own wheelchair, and responding with nods to her parents and sometimes even whispering — far beyond what the doctors believed what she would ever do again.

Perdue's doctors, when speaking with Gutierrez, have already referred to her daughter as a "miracle child," because when she was first wheeled in to emergency surgery, they predicted she had roughly 48 hours left to live.

"I was in the room with her when she was whispering, and I'm like, 'Oh my God.' I just started crying," Gutierrez said. "Everything she does now — it makes me cry. To go from a perfectly healthy child, to a child that's probably won't make it, to now..."

Purdue isn't expected to be able to step on a skateboard again, but Gutierrez and Purdue's sister-in-law, Mercedes Garcia, with the help of Cheyenne's small skateboarding community, are doing what they can to help the situation in a way Perdue would endorse.

Medical bills get pretty high, so the skateboarding community from the surrounding Front Range region is banding together with Shred 4 Stef, a rare and well-planned skateboarding competition open to anyone who's looking to compete or watch talented skaters throw down.

All funds raised by participants and attendees stopping by vendors during the Sept. 23 event will be donated to Perdue's family to help alleviate financial pressure. The skateboarding community may be limited, said event organizer Mason Dieters, but it has a roots, one that Cheyenne can acknowledge in a time of need.

"Some of the locals out there that do a lot of competitions (in Fort Collins, Colorado) will be coming up to participate," Dieters said. "I think that the community that surrounds the music scene here kind of (overshadows) the skateboarding community. There's not a lot of skaters. But when something happens, it's really close knit."

For those unfamiliar with a skateboarding competition, Shred 4 Stef follows a typical format, with different categories of challenges between skaters. Within those categories, there are subcategories.

Street skateboarding entails flat ground tricks, rather than those performed in half-pipes or bowls. Categories unique to the street competition are things like "best grind" or a game of S.K.A.T.E, which follows the same rules as playing a game of H.O.R.S.E in basketball — one skater performs a trick, and the other has to successfully replicate it.

Both categories will contain competitions like "best trick" and "best line."

Shred 4 Stef organizers enlisted some professional help from a former skate rat, better known locally as City Council member Richard Johnson.

In the '90s, Johnson worked as a freelance photographer and writer for Thrasher Magazine, over the decade interacting with some of the biggest names in skateboarding, like Tony Hawk, Ronny Creager, Rob Dyrdek and Bam Margera. He was a major proponent of establishing and developing Brimmer Skatepark and covering whatever skateboarding scene was present at the time on the Front Range.

Originally, Mason wanted Johnson to serve as one of the three judges in the competition.

"I was like, 'No, I'm really a stickler for tricks,'" Johnson said, laughing. "Back foot toe-drag, front foot toe-drag, I'm a stickler. I don't want some poor kid's mom coming up and screaming in my face because he had a back foot toe-drag off a Tre-flip."

Johnson will, however, announce the entire competition. He also helped the organizers plan the event, given his involvement and experience hosting many local skateboarding competitions in the past.

Cheyenne may not have a big community of skaters, but it's a community that looks out for one another.

"It's funny, I don't even know the person they're fundraising for," Johnson said. "When they asked (me to be a part of it), I was like, 'It's the skate community. I'll help out as needed.'"

Ironically, getting attention isn't exactly Perdue's style.

Gutierrez recently brought the proposal to Perdue, who, in her limited ability, shook her head "no." Despite being planned by her friends and fellow skaters in the area, she's never been interested in drawing attention to herself.

"She just shook her head," Gutierrez said. "I said, 'I know you don't. You don't like all the attention, but this will help you.'"

Perdue's only goal is to one day again stand on her skateboard.

"She gets all embarrassed, but I said 'eventually you'll get back to skateboarding,' and she just shook her head really excited," Gutierrez said. "You will, you're gonna have to make some adjustments."

Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.