125 attend vigil for Tracee
Only hours after an estimated 125 supporters gathered around her house in Troy to pray for her recovery, Tracee Peterson surprised doctors Saturday morning when she began responding to verbal commands. She raised her arms. She opened and closed her eyes. She squeezed a finger. She wiggled her toes. And in the process she warmed her family’s hearts.
“After a week of the status quo, this was fantastic news,” Ed Hanson, Peterson’s father, said.
While Peterson was making her breakthrough, her parents, along with friends and family, moved her five children less than a block from their house at 616 N. 3rd St. to their grandparent’s home. Friends mowed the lawn, cleaned the house and installed new smoke detectors as grandma and grandpa worked to instill a sense of normalcy.
“It will be tough putting a family of seven into a two bedroom home,” Hanson said.
Trish Hanson, Peterson’s mother, said it was a blessing to keep the family close together in such a difficult time.
“The community response has been wonderful,” Trish Hanson said between hugs during Friday’s prayer vigil.
Many attendees at the vigil wore purple clothes and purple ribbons in support of domestic violence awareness, which happens to schedule its national month in October. Several purple ribbons decorated the wooden fence surrounding the Peterson house. The theme has grown daily throughout the town since a Sept. 28 morning call to police reported a woman badly beaten by a baseball bat.
Joshua Peterson, Tracee’s husband, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.
The medical response following the 6:33 a.m. police call began with an ambulance driving Tracee Peterson toward Kalispell. A helicopter met the ambulance in transit and shortened the transport by approximately an hour.
Ed Hanson said a team of four to five doctors was able to stabilize Peterson in her critical condition within hours of her arrival. From there, things remained stable but uncertain. Doctors’ primary concern was stopping the leak of fluid from Peterson’s brain. The left side stopped already, but the right continues to leak. The concern continued even after her Saturday breakthrough. Following a conference, doctors decided to transfer Peterson from Kalispell Regional Medical Center to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Sunday morning.
“I talked to the flight nurse,” Ed Hanson said. “She told me that Tracee was calm and almost alert during the flight. At one point she said Tracee stared into her eyes.”
Harborview Medical Center serves as the leading adult trauma center for Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.
“They’re going to start working on the facial fractures and reconstruction,” Hanson said.
The prayer vigil began with Troy Church of God pastor Gene Bushnell saying a few words. Under his instruction, attendees repeated in unison “With God, all things are possible.”
Ed Hanson updated folks on his daughter’s condition and as the sun fell below the Cabinet Mountains, people began lighting purple candles and lining up to sign oversized get-well cards and bury their candles in the mud next to a small shrine in front of the Peterson house.
A few minutes later a man who identified himself as Jim McAvey spoke.
“I feel convicted in my own heart to pray for repentance for all of us,” he said.
His following statements sparked a spontaneous prayer circle that carried on for more than 20 minutes. The personal prayers were capped when a woman began singing “Amazing Grace.” Before she could reach “how sweet the sound,” she was joined by the majority of the circle. Folks began giving farewell hugs when the song ended. Others lingered, looking off into the darkening distance and deeper into the darker recesses of themselves.
The vigil was planned by a group of Tracee Peterson’s friends. One of them, Kori Erickson, grew up with Peterson.
“I know Tracee would have done the same for me,” Erickson said. “The thing about Tracee is that she was my best friend, is my best friend. There are about 30 other people in town who would say the same about her. She’s just an inviting person.”
Plans are in the works for a Nov. 16 fundraiser for Peterson. As things stand, the event would include a chili feed, a carnival for kids and a work auction offering the services of the members of the Troy High School football team. Later in the evening, the event would move to the VFW where there would be an auction and raffle.
“We are hoping to land the Copper Mountain Band,” Erickson said. “I know the Mariners and Seahawks have sent packages for the event as well.”
Erickson says Peterson put her children ahead of everything else in her life.
“She homeschooled them until she started working this year,” Erickson said. “She coached tee-ball last year and the kids loved ‘Coach Peterson.’”
Erickson also said her friend always gave people the benefit of the doubt.
“Someone showed me this thing called the Wheel of Abuse and I said, check, check, check,” Erickson said. “I saw all those things with Tracee.”
The September incident follows a 2003 attack in which Joshua Peterson was charged with felonious criminal endangerment and misdemeanor partner-family member assault.
A plea agreement led to the felony charge being dismissed without prejudice, but Peterson was found guilty of misdemeanor partner-family assault.
According to court documents, Joshua pushed Tracee’s face into a dryer and choked her in front of the couple’s children.