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• Lodi man sentenced for torturing child

• Local artist Jacquelyn Vierra hopes funky piano will help Treasure Island event hit high note

• Lodi Unified School District facing $20 million budget shortfall for next school year

• Lodi High School's new principal, Bob Lofsted, will begin today

• Lockeford voters may be asked to approve tax for park maintenance, security

• Regional Roundup

November 20th, 2009

• Real estate market gets on more solid ground

• Advocacy groups sue East Bay Municipal Utility District over Pardee expansion

• National Guard troops return home in time for the holidays

• Salvation Army Kettle Kickoff

• Regional Roundup

• Stable southeast of Lodi approved

• Acampo woman killed

• One year after a heart attack, Lodi's Judy Mims thanks rescuers

• Galt plans to help residents with energy-efficient projects

November 19th, 2009

• Logbook

• Water surges in Mokelumne River yield more salmon

• Suspect arrested after hiding in fridge

• Lodi City Council plans to cap number of taco trucks at 22

• Operation: Christmas

• Corrections

• Sales tax hike yields dividends: 5 new officers join Galt Police

• Chase ends in crash

• Lodi Unified School District board votes to cancel summer school for 2010

• Lodi City Council will consider redevelopment next June

• Galt Joint Union High School Distric hires new superintendent

November 18th, 2009

• Congress allocates money for local water projects

• Lodi man finds wife's ashes during police display of stolen property

• Sarah Palin's book hits the shelves: Locals react

• Regional Roundup

• Galt City Council rejects study on rent stabilization

• Paranormal group conducts second investigation of building

November 17th, 2009

• Lodi Budget and Finance Committee to look into ways to save money on employee benefits

• Redevelopment to be discussed by Lodi City Council again

• Paying tribute to a Lodian

• Regional Roundup

• Court reinstates death penalty for killer of Lodi grad

• Clements gets free water rescue boat

• Clarification

• Decision on summer school expected at tonight's Lodi Unified School District meeting

November 16th, 2009

• Sierra Adventure store to close after four years in Downtown Lodi

• Regional Roundup

• Correction

• Lodi's First Sip event showcases area wineries' latest vintages

• City Council 'triple-dog dared' to ditch cars, use Lodi buses

• Three members of Lodi-area family fall ill after eating poisonous mushrooms they reportedly found at Lodi Lake

• Public Meetings

November 14th, 2009

• Regional Roundup

• Despite an increase in homeless students, school districts look to bolster enrollment, raise revenue

• A first look at 2009 vintages at Lodi's First Sip wine-tasting event

• Watchful neighbor in Lodi helped bust suspected burglars

• New Galt city manager juggles job, family

• Galt school district narrows superintendent search to one

• Despite budget cuts, some Lodi Unified School District salaries continue to rise

November 13th, 2009

• What to expect with new homebuyer tax credit

• Lodi Muslim: Local mosque not involved

• Regional Roundup

• Burglary suspects are under arrest

• Lodi veteran recounts close calls in Vietnam

• Mayor Larry Hansen points out Lodi's economic progress

• First phase of Lockeford park by 2011?

The following stories have received the most reader comments during the last 7 days.

• The country's mess is our fault (130)
• Obama is not a moderate (129)
• Sarah Palin's book hits the shelves: Locals react (60)
• Despite budget cuts, some Lodi Unified School District salaries continue to rise (49)
• Lodi City Council plans to cap number of taco trucks at 22 (45)
• Lodi Flames slim playoff chances vanish in setback to Tracy Bulldogs (25)
• Tokay in, traveling to unbeaten No. 3 Grant for football playoffs (25)
• The haves should help the have-nots (25)
• Tokay Tigers blow late 27-point lead in loss to Wolf Pack (22)
• Nightmares about America's future (21)

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Broken neck can't stop Woodbridge cyclist Lauren Liden

While her body lay flat on the ground, Lauren Liden's mind was racing.

The Woodbridge resident wondered how she went from riding her mountain bike to being tossed into the air before landing head first on the ground.

With a throbbing headache and blood rushing from her nose, she tried to analyze the situation. She could wiggle her toes and fingers. She had feeling up and down her body. She wasn't paralyzed, but she knew something wasn't right.

As an ambulance came to take her out of the adventure race in which she was competing in the hills of South Dakota to the hospital in Rapid City, she began to think her neck was broken.

She was right. Liden fractured her C1 vertebrae, the very top bone in her neck. Luckily for Liden, it didn't touch her spinal cord. Outside of immense pain and a short stint in a few different neck braces, Liden won't have any permanent damage from the accident.

"I could have been dead or I could have been in a wheelchair. To me this is nothing," Liden said recently, pointing to the immobilizing headgear that is strapped from her back to the top of her head. "I will be as good as new in four or five months and back to what I was doing and I am extremely lucky."

It's hard to believe it's all from a stick that popped up off the trail and jammed itself into her front tire, bending two of her spokes like an elbow and launching Liden into the air like a projectile.

The Race

Liden is a cyclist. Whether it's road riding, hitting mountain trails or summer adventures with her husband Lyle, she spends a lot of time on her bike. So when she was approached about competing in Primal Quest — a 10-day adventure race covering 600 miles of biking, trekking, climbing, caving, kayaking, river boarding and more with the majority of the miles coming on the bike — she couldn't refuse.

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So she joined a three other Stockton Bicycle Club members — who were in need of a female rider for the coed race — and headed to South Dakota in mid-August.

Liden's squad, Team Spanos, hiked a marathon with their camping gear on day one. They continued through the race, biking and caving, working hard and only sleeping about two hours a night.

"I was having a blast," said Liden, a veterinary doctor who owns Dry Creek Veterinary Hospital in Galt. "I would have to say I was having the time of my life in this race."

Halfway through the fourth day, Team Spanos realized they'd taken a wrong turn during a biking section of the competition. Once they figured out they were on the wrong road, they turned around to backtrack in search of the right one.

On the way back, they met up with Big City Mountaineering, another team that took the same wrong turn. As they pedaled back to the original trail on a forest service road — not a technically challenging ride — Liden glanced back to talk to one of the Big City Mountaineering riders.

Bam! That's when it happened.

"I caught her out of the corner of my eye. I saw her going over her handlebars," said Liden's teammate, Steve Peppard, a Galt resident and Stockton Police Officer. "I knew it wasn't going to be good. Then I heard her land."

The Crash

Liden said that those who saw the crash believe she flew about 30 feet. She landed straight on her head, like a railroad spike being driven into the ground by inertia. Her helmet, which now shows a crack in its interior foam, saved her life.

"One minute I'm on my bike, riding down the trail. No big deal," Liden recalls of the crash. "The next minute I'm airborne and for a split second I remember thinking 'Whoa what I'm I doing in the air.' And then I smack on the ground. Just in milliseconds. It was so fast."

The impact broke her neck and brought intense pain to her entire head. Her sunglasses were impaled into her nose. Her teammates had to pull them out of her face, leaving a gash across the bridge of nose that would later require three stitches and has left an X-shaped scar.

Her jaw throbbed. Her ears rung. Her eyes, reacting from a traumatic impact, became painfully sensitive to light.

"The regular sunlight was like the light of 10,000 suns burning my eyes," Liden said. "It was so bright."

Her teammates covered her eyes with a towel, which they also soaked with water for Liden to suck on. They forced her to remain still, trying to stabilize her neck — an effort that saved her life and prevented paralysis. Even taking a sip of water was too dangerous.

While waiting for the ambulance, Liden, who was fully conscious, started to realize the severity of her injury.

"I was thinking this is the bad kind of pain and there was no way I was going to finish that race," she said.

The Aftermath

More often than not, fractures to the top two vertebrae result in paralysis or death. Test results revealed that Liden's ligaments held the fractured C1 in place. The broken vertebrae didn't touch the spinal cord.

The break also could have damaged nerves that connect to the diaphragm, like what happened in Christopher Reeve's paralyzing horseback-riding injury. In that case, Liden would not have been able to breathe and could have died or spent the rest of her life needing respiratory assistance.

Many times when vertebrae are broken, they must be surgically fused together to create permanent stability. With no vertebrae above C1, Liden would have had to have the broken vertebrae fused to her skull, severely limiting her neck and head mobility for the rest of her life. Once again, Liden got lucky and her C1 showed enough stability to eliminate the need for surgery. She was even allowed to leave the hospital, fitted in her halo tightly strapped to her head, neck and back, five days after the crash.

A few days later, she traveled back to Lodi.

At first Liden's activities were very limited. She couldn't move around much, or even lift a gallon of milk. Getting dressed and taking a bath were grueling activities.

Day by day, Liden was able to do more. Now she's able to go to the gym and can even lift 15 pound weights. She's got her stationary training bike up in her backyard and rides it almost every day.

In the immediate future, she's looking forward to ditching the halo for a less obstructive neck brace. Then she'll be able to slowly get back to work.

She's bummed she'll be inactive for the snowboarding season, as she already bought a pass to Kirkwood. She constantly pesters doctors about when the halo can come off and when she can get back on the bike. She's hoping to be training and racing again come early 2010.

"It's really scary what could have happened," Liden said. "People look at this whole getup and say 'oh you poor thing.' But I am so lucky."