Not many people can pinpoint the exact day that changed the rest of their lives, but Palo Alto student Irma Rios can.

Rios, 20, is a living example of why young people should stay away from the temptations of gangs. Just after school let out on Feb. 19, 1997, Rios, a 16-year-old gang member, crossed Interstate Highway 35 at Navajo, near South San Antonio High School, and almost lost her life.

She was with her friends, fellow gang members from South San. For three years, these thrill-seeking girls had been crossing the busy highway, rather than using the catwalk overhead.

On this day, Rios’ luck ran out. As she was running, she heard one of her friends yell at her, “Watch out! You’re gonna get hit!” In the confusion of the moment, Rios believed that if she sped up she could outrun the oncoming car. She was wrong. It was the other way around. As she ran faster, the car came closer until she was struck.

Before the ambulance came, a passing motorist stopped to administer CPR and keep Rios alive. She was taken to Wilford Hall Medical Center and underwent surgery on her broken leg. Rios did not regain consciousness for another 39 days.

On Easter Sunday, 1997, Rios finally awoke from the coma, unable to walk or talk.

“When I woke up out of the coma most of my memory was erased,” said Rios, “but I remembered who I was, how old I was and who everybody was.”

Not long after waking, her mind wouldn’t cooperate with her broken body. She attempted to get out of bed, but she collapsed and had to be restrained from such physical activity.

Eventually, she was able to communicate by pointing to letters on an alphabet chart. “They knew I could spell; I could still read,” she said.

Rios went through a considerable amount of therapy and considered giving up at times. She found strength and decided, “I’m not gonna give up, I’m gonna walk and I’m gonna talk.”

After regaining her communications skills, Rios continued her physical therapy at Santa Rosa Hospital. Accompanied by her grandmother, she learned how to walk again.

Rios was extremely proud to progress from the wheelchair, to the walker and to the cane, until she could walk unaided.
Now that Rios was walking on her own, she set a new goal. She was determined to walk the stage with the South San

Senior Class of 1998. She did just that.

Rios said that one teacher at South San, Ms. Jennifer Ferrell, was especially encouraging in helping her to accomplish her high school goals.

At 16, Rios was forced to see life through wizened eyes. She no longer thought about life the way an average 16-year-old did. She understood that gang life was not the answer. She realized that the people who supported her through her recovery were not the gang members she once believed were all she needed, but instead, her own family.

Mother, father, grandmother and even her younger cousin all played a major role in her recovery. She hadn’t had a very close relationship with her cousin until the accident, but it drew them closer together. Today they are the best of friends, and it is a relationship that Rios cherishes and is very proud of.

The accident left a lasting impression on Rios. She denounced the gang lifestyle, and in 1999, she started speaking out publicly against gangs at Antonio Olivares Elementary School.

Vice-principal, Barbara McHale, said that Rios has been a great help to many of the teachers at Olivares. “Irma Rios is always willing to help the teachers and has helped with the kindergarten teachers quite a bit.”

Though her busy college schedule has not allowed her to visit the school in several months, she plans to continue the speaking engagements when she has more time to dedicate to them.

Although she helped with children from pre-kindergarden up, she felt that her lasting contribution was to the fifth graders. She shared her story with these impressionable pre-teens hoping to persuade them to stay away from the temptation of joining gangs.

She would tell the elementary students, “Don’t be getting involved with gangs. You’ve got to watch out for yourself. Nobody’s going to love you but yourself and your family.”

She said that she began her gang involvement at about the same age as the fifth graders. At that time, she believed that belonging to a gang would give her an identity and a group to depend on through thick and thin.

She said she’d tell the kids: “Trust me, they don’t love you. They don’t care what happens to you, because look what happened to me for being with a gang. That’s what happened to me. It’s not worth it, because you risk your own life for that one little gang.”

Rios said that though her journey to recovery was a difficult one, she learned a lot about her own strength and determination.

She also discovered that she had a great capacity for learning and that it really mattered to her to succeed.

After high school graduation, Rios became a student at Palo Alto and is a member of Palo Alto’s PASSkey Program, a federally funded program designed to help high-risk students in their higher education pursuits.

The program provides academic case management-like services to help students stay in school and to keep their grades as high as possible.

PASSKey Coordinator Dedra Scow said, “Ms. Rios is a very positive and determined person. I feel that she views the future with optimism and with anticipation for great success. I would like other students to know (about) Irma’s wonderfully determined spirit. She has overcome such great obstacles, and yet she still considers school a top priority.”

Scow, who is impressed by Rios’ determination, said, “I consider it a real privilege to be able to work with her.”

Rios is currently taking a class in American Sign Language. Initially she wanted to learn sign language to be able to communicate more clearly, but fell in love with it and hopes to use it to help others. She someday hopes to be an interpreter for the deaf.

Another change in Rios’ life is her intense desire to make a difference in the lives of other people.

“I just can’t believe how good it feels to help others,” Rios said. She not only stresses the importance of gang resistance to kids, but she also encourages people to be nice to animals.

Irma Rios’ life is changed. It is difficult to say what her life would be like now if she had never crossed that busy highway in 1997. But one thing is for sure, she makes a difference now.