Small Wonder : Girl Who Is Still Ailing After Cougar Attack 2 Years Ago Keeps Her Family Going With Courage and Spirit

In the front yard of her family’s El Toro home one recent sunny afternoon, Laura Michele Small laughed and played like any other 7-year-old girl, smearing on lipstick to the mock chagrin of her mother.

But as she played with her friends, Laura wore a crash helmet to protect a portion of her head that is left without a skullcap. And she ran with a limp, favoring her injured right side.

Two years and one month after she was mauled by a mountain lion in Orange County’s Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park, Laura’s life is returning to normal--as normal as it can be, considering she has undergone nine operations and needs at least two more.

Reconstructive Surgery

On Monday, she entered Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center for 6 1/2 hours of reconstructive surgery on her nose, as well as preparatory work for another operation this summer in which a metal or plastic plate will be inserted over the unprotected part of her head. Later this year, doctors will try to cosmetically improve the appearance of her blind right eye.

She may never regain complete mobility of her right side, which was partially paralyzed by the attack.

While her parents worry about her future, Laura takes her medical predicament in stride.

The hospital, she wrote to her classmates, “was just like hevin (sic). You could go to the cafeteria whenever you wanted to.”

Laura’s infectiously happy personality is in large measure what has kept the Small household going the past two years, her parents said. She rarely complains about her injuries and has had no nightmares. In fact, a big black cat named Sylbuster sleeps on her bed at night.

Laura has maintained such a positive outlook that her father, Donald, said: “She’s been a source of strength to everybody.”

Still, the March 23, 1986, cougar attack left its mental imprint. Her parents said Laura starts at the sight of large animals and cowers when dogs run toward her.

Skittish About Going Outside

Until only very recently, her parents said, she was skittish about going outside. And in a recent visit to the San Diego Zoo, Laura and her family watched in terror as a baby mountain lion was unexpectedly introduced in an animal show.

“That was not good at all,” said Laura’s mother, Susan Mattern-Small. “None of us liked it.”

Laura was just steps from her mother on a nature trail at Caspers on March 23, 1986, when the mountain lion snatched her.

Before a hiker could frighten the cat away, it crushed the left side of Laura’s skull, sending shards of bone into her brain. Her right arm and leg were paralyzed, her right eye was damaged, and she suffered 50 cuts on her head and face.

Since the attack, a team of about 40 doctors at Mission and several other hospitals have worked to try and restore Laura’s health. Although she has progressed from having to use a wheelchair to nearly full mobility and can now move her right arm, severe complications persist.

Doctors could not save her eye, and she still can’t use her right hand. Her brain is protected only by a thin layer of skin where the skullcap was ripped off.

She also suffers from a blood disease called hypoplastic anemia and may need bone marrow transplants if it worsens. The blood disease was brought on by Laura’s allergic reaction to antibiotics, her mother said.

Laura’s parents once calculated that they were making 30 trips to the doctor each month. Her mother has had to quit her job as a piano teacher, and her father has had to take extended leaves from his job as an optical engineer.

“It’s just turned our lives upside down,” Donald Small said.

Last month, burglars added insult to injury when they broke into the Smalls’ home as the family slept, took some electronic appliances and the family’s two cars. The cars were later found abandoned and stripped.

Mattern-Small, 39, said she had difficulty reconciling her religious faith and the family’s trouble.

“I’ve had a real hard time trying to tie in what I believe with what has happened,” she said.

Her husband, 41, added: “It all makes you realize these things can happen to you; that you’re very vulnerable.”

As her parents spoke last week before the surgery, Laura clutched a pink stuffed bunny and fidgeted next to her mother, playfully shoving her older brother, David, 11. To David’s consternation, Mattern-Small said, Laura feels she can hit him without fear of reprisal. Because of her head injury, he is not allowed to strike back.

As if to emphasize the point, Laura giggled and punched her brother in the arm when asked what she likes to do most. She added that she likes to play “super girl” and dress up and put on neighborhood theatrical shows.

“I like to play the princess,” she said with a grin.

Most of all, Laura said, she loves to sing. Songs from old musicals are her favorites.

“We rented out the movie ‘South Pacific’ last year and she’s been singing the music from that ever since,” Mattern-Small said.

Last fall, Laura passed a milestone when she improved enough to be transferred from the medical therapy unit of Richard H. Dana Elementary School to the school’s regular first-grade class.

In the medical unit, her mother said, Laura underwent therapy such as sitting on a big rubber ball and reaching down to regain a sense of balance. At first, Laura did not have enough balance to even sit atop the ball. Now she sits with other students in classes and rides to and from school on the bus.

Mattern-Small said Laura has had a hard time making friends at school because she is regarded as different. Her blind eye scares some children, Mattern-Small said. And her unwillingness to answer students’ questions about the mountain lion attack alienates others.

Laura complains that she has told the story so many times that she is sick of it.

“She says when people ask her about what happened, she tells them she doesn’t want to talk about it,” Mattern-Small said.

The Smalls, meanwhile, have been encouraged by thousands of letters from well-wishers all over the United States. Many include contributions to a trust fund to help pay the medical bills, which have totaled about $300,000, Small said. Insurance, however, has covered much of the cost. The trust fund money not needed for medical expenses and ongoing rehabilitation will be used for Laura’s education, Small said.

So far, around $35,000 has been collected in the trust fund, Mattern-Small said, including monthly contributions of $50 to $100 from a woman in St. Louis, Mo.

No amount of money can remedy some things, such as teaching Laura how to tie her shoelaces using only one hand. Nor can it erase the worry the parents feel over Laura’s future.

But at least she has a future, they said. And she is able to carry on almost like a normal girl.

“Mentally, she is doing so well,” Mattern-Small said. “She seems to accept all these (physical) things beautifully. She only complains about the things a 7-year-old would complain about, like too much homework.”