Panigutti Family Celebrates ‘A Walking Miracle’

By Dottie Evans

When nearly 100 guests, including friends, therapists, and family members, gathered Saturday afternoon outside the Huntingtown Road home of Lou and Carol Panigutti, nobody cared that the rain was pelting down. That was because a little adversity in the form of bad weather was nothing compared to what one special person had recently gone through.

They were celebrating the sheer determination and physical progress shown by Carol Panigutti, who had suffered near-total paralysis due to a bicycle accident that happened nearly two years ago.

At the time, her doctors warned she would never walk again. Now they are saying she is “off the charts.”

Mr Panigutti called his wife a “walking miracle,” as he addressed his guests Saturday afternoon.

“Carol never gave up the thought that she’d walk again. We thank the Lord, and we’re truly blessed,” he said.

“To see how far she’s come from that first week when she couldn’t even move her arms, it’s so wonderful,” said their daughter, Candy Panigutti.

Carol Panigutti has not only learned to walk again, she is out of her wheel chair and able to stroll down their quiet road all by herself with no more support than a couple of canes.  If she goes to the mall, she’ll use a walker because of the crowds. She can go up and down stairs, she swims in their heated pool, and she moves about now on her own steam. Given the dire predictions two years ago, this level of progress is nothing short of amazing.

“We knew at the beginning it would be like a mile-long journey taken an inch at a time,” said Mr Panigutti.

“It’s been two years now, and we are celebrating a high point in my wife’s recovery. She’s gotten to the 60 percent point, and we no longer need this wheel chair ramp,” he said.

He spoke to the group from atop the sturdy wooden ramp and railing structure the family had built a few months after the accident on October 23, 2001, and after her subsequent hospitalization and extensive therapy at Danbury Hospital and the Gaylordsville rehabilitation center.

The ramp was constructed to accommodate the wheelchair she used at home when she was finally released from Gaylordsville in March of 2002.

Accordingly, Lou Panigutti and their oldest son, Tony Panigutti, who lives now in Denver, and their daughter, Candy Panigutti, who teaches biology in the Brookfield schools, along with several guests stepped forward. They grabbed heavy mallets, a circular saw, an electric drill, and a couple of crowbars and went to work with a vengeance.

Within a few minutes, the wheelchair ramp was history. But not before Carol Panigutti, herself, got the first opportunity to give the handrails a good sound whack with an ax.

A spontaneous cheer erupted from the group of onlookers as she swung away. Two other children, who had also helped their mother throughout the long recovery period, were not able to attend. They are Lance Panigutti, a world champion triathlon competitor who is away at college, and Cara Panigutti, a licensed physical therapist, who is married and lives out of state. All four children graduated from Newtown schools.

“I want to thank my family, because without their support, I wouldn’t be here. Especially Lou, who took me to PT [physical therapy at the Main Street Rehabilitation Center in Danbury] all those times, and my wonderful therapists,” Mrs Panigutti said.

One of her gifts that afternoon was a picture brought by their longtime friends, Nancy and Gerry Finnegan, showing Carol and Lou Panigutti dancing. It was taken August 28 at the wedding of their daughter, Julienne.

“That was one of her goals –– to be able to dance again –– and she’s done it,” said Nancy Finnegan.

“Both she and Lou are an inspiration to us all.”