Today we’d like to introduce you to Nicola Bridges.
Nicola, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
In 2013, I was a media executive here in San Diego for one of Dr. Oz’s health platforms, with a son Jack, then 19, in college at the University of Maryland, and his younger brother Owen, then 17, at home who is autistic. Always through my 20+ year career in media in New York and then in San Diego, I’d wanted to start a nonprofit for special needs youth and young adults, but was trapped on the treadmill of life and dealing with Owen’s autism and an insanely busy job involving weekly coast to coast travel. So I never was able to focus on that dream.
Then on March 26th that year, we got a call in the night that Jack was in trauma ER in Maryland with a life-threatening traumatic brain injury, that he was being rushed into the OR for brain surgery and I needed to get there as FAST as I could. They didn’t tell us at the time, but they gave Jack only a 10 percent chance of surviving. But he did. He was put in an induced coma to let his brain heal. I sat vigil at the ICU in Maryland willing him to live and talking to him, and when they took him off the ventilator a few months later, he immediately spoke!
“Mom, what are you doing here, where am I, what happened?” Jack had been assaulted and sucker-punched at an event at UMD as he and his friends were walking by and away from a bar brawl on the sidewalk. He suffered a subdural hematoma pushing on his cortex, and they had to remove a quarter of his skull to relieve the pressure.
He had what his neurosurgeon and trauma chiefs said was a miraculous, rare and remarkable recovery, and after intensive rehabilitation to get walking and talking properly again, daily memory processing exercises and a second brain surgery to close up his skull, and on many meds and much ongoing therapy, Jack returned to college and had his best semester of grades and made the dean’s list. He was having occasional seizures which worried me, but Jack was in a fraternity and his many brothers and friends kept close watch on him and took him to the hospital each time he had a seizure.
When I returned to San Diego, I unraveled and lost it. All the pressure and stress and intensity of willing Jack to live then trying to be upbeat when he came back to us but still worrying at all the long term issues with TBIs that could lay ahead. It was too much, and I crumbled. Unable to function. I quit my job, and for my health bought a 10-acre ranch in Ramona, horses that I’d had a passion for growing up riding as a kid in England (I’m British), and the solace of being surrounded by the Ramona Grasslands and nature.
Jack was a low key, funny guy with many, many, many friends. He just wanted to blend back in again and not be the guy who was assaulted. The assailant, Arasp Biparva, was arrested for second-degree assault and I flew east coast to be with Jack and my ex, at every court hearing. He pled guilty but got only nine disgraceful days in county jail for almost killing my son.
During the summer of 2014, after his skull was closed up completely, Jack was able to fly to San Francisco to do an internship. He was studying working towards a BA in Journalism with an emphasis on sports and marketing and was so upset that when he was well enough to look at his laptop in the ICU the previous summer, he’d been accepted for an internship on his favorite ESPN show, ‘Round the Horn’, which added greatly to the depression he was suffering from what had happened to him.
Back at the ranch that summer he visited when I was focused on what I’d always wanted to do, and was starting that dreamed of nonprofit, Capability Ranch Activities & Events Center for Special Needs Youth & Young Adults. He said, “Mom, you’re right where you should be now doing what you should be doing.” It made my heart swell.
We were going to open at the end of November 2014. Then, on November 6, my husband and I were flying to Maryland to attend Jack’s fraternity’s annual gala fundraising ball, which was for Capability Ranch and to honor Jack. Jack didn’t respond to my texts from the airport about how beyond excited I was to be hanging with him for the weekend and the gala fundraiser.
I was so happy! I thought he must be in class or busy. We landed in Baltimore to the news that Jack had passed away from a seizure in his sleep. The weekend turned into a candlelight vigil with hundreds of friends gathered. Jack was truly loved. He was just such a great guy–and my best friend. We told each other everything. Biparva was re-arrested for manslaughter 2 and pled guilty. The typical jail time for this in Maryland is six-ten years prison. The prosecutor was going for ten.
The judge gave him zero jail time. ZERO. For killing Jack, this man got no jail time. Just a ten year suspended sentence and three years probation. You cannot imagine how me, my family and his friends felt. The local news media covered the case because of this. And when Biparva’s lawyer filed to have the sentence suspended like it never happened like he never killed Jack, and the judge agreed (!!), again the news media came, and The Washington post followed it all.
I fell into a deep dark abyss of grieving and don’t really remember much of the next months. But I opened Capability Ranch nonprofit in January 2015 and started doing our amazing weekly Capability Ranch activities for developmentally delayed young adults, including my son Owen, on the ranch and taking groups to offsite events.
Today, by parents’ popular demand, we fund more offsite events, such as going to see The Grinch at The Old Globe over the holidays, going to San Diego Gulls and Padres games, and to both the Ramona and Poway Rodeos every year, and The Dairy Camel Festival Days in Ramona, as well as other excursions. We try and provide fun activities that the family may not otherwise go to due to expense or feeling isolated in the crowd having a special needs son or daughter.
We all go as our Capability Ranch tribe and always have a great time–our ‘forever kids’ and the parents and caregivers. Life for me is very different now. I’m a media consultant and writer for national outlets, including Parade magazine, which did a 2015 Mother’s Day cover feature on my journey which they titled ‘Capability Ranch: The Gift in The Tragedy.’
While moving to Ramona and opening Capability Ranch has been the gift, I would return to my hectic digital media, flying-all-the-time living in a heartbeat if it meant Jack could be back. But as my life is now, in my never-ending grieving and love for Jack, we do what we do at Capability Ranch in his honor. We do on-ranch activities in a big converted barn we call The Jack Shack.
We’re a small local nonprofit, but somewhat unique, and rely on donations and grants. www.capabilityranch.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The heat in Ramona has impacted attendance in summer months. And it’s because of that last year that I polled parents and decided on their feedback to now focus on quarterly and bi-quarterly events and activities. I was putting the pressure on myself and the volunteers doing crafts and painting, music, dancing, Zumba, baking and more that it needed to be every week. It didn’t. Special needs families lead hectic lives too, and they appreciate so much being able to expose their sons and daughters to events and activities they might not otherwise experience. But weekly was just too much for them and for me.
Keeping funds in the account is also a struggle. We have a base of generous supporters and have received great local support grants from the Ramona Food & Clothes Closet Foundation, but typically only have around $1500 in the funds at any one time, and 20 Old Globe Tickets to the Grinch themselves were $600! So getting enough donations in to keep it going is an ongoing challenge. Being a small nonprofit, we don’t have staff, so most of the work falls on me.
Please tell us about Capability Ranch Activities & Events Center for Special Needs Youth & Young Adults.
We’re a unique ranch-based nonprofit in Ramona providing events and excursions for the special needs youth and young adult community. I’m most proud that I committed my heart passion starting Capability Ranch, even when my son died unexpectedly. I’m proud him and of everything we’ve done and do.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Being at the stables, riding and jumping ponies.
Pricing:
- $10-$20 donation fee (depending on the event)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.capabilityranch.org
- Phone: 914.582.5901
- Email: capabilityranch@gmail.com
- Facebook: Capability Ranch
Image Credit:
Capability Ranch, Parade Magazine
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