NEW YORK, New York, September 5. AMY Van Dyken-Rouen is set to return to her home in Scottsdale, Ariz., for the first time since the June 6 accident that severed her spine and rendered her paralyzed from the waist down. She visited the New York City studios of the “Today” show this morning to talk about the preparations being made in her home to make it wheelchair accessible, and how the accident has changed her spiritual beliefs.
The six-time Olympic champion talked with Matt Lauer about seeing “a whitish green hue around me” while she laid unconscious in a ravine after being thrown from her all-terrain vehicle June 6. “I felt very, very at peace and was just going through it, and then all of a sudden I woke up in the hospital. Was it the tunnel? I don’t know.”
As she has since the accident, Van Dyken-Rouen is focused on walking again on her own. She recently took steps with the help of a mechanized brace on her legs but said in the “Today” interview that she wants to run a marathon with her brother.
Watch her interview with Lauer, accompanied by her husband Tom Rouen, in the video player below (courtesy NBC News’ “Today”).
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