Kimberly Birkenfeld Sorts Out Her Greek Tragedy
By Rich Roberts
(As printed in The Log Newspaper)

Kimberly Birkenfeld had it all at 37. An MBA from Harvard, a successful consulting business, the No. 1 ranking among women windsurfers on the U.S. Sailing Team, all leading into a week with her boyfriend, Magnus Liljedahl, at his birthplace in Sweden.

After a flight together to Amsterdam, where they parted, he returned to his adopted home in America to sail in the Nautica Star Worlds at Marina del Rey. She went on to the pre-Olympic regatta at Athens.

"It was the epitome of my sailing career," she said. "I couldn’t have been happier that I had earned the right to represent the [U.S.] in the Olympic test event. I had everything lined up. Then the next thing I knew I woke up in Oregon."

Aug. 8, 2002, a year ago today from this publication date, was the day Birkenfeld's life crashed. She didn't feel a thing. She remembers nothing.

About a half-hour before a race start she was involved in a violent collision with a rival team's inflatable chase boat. It was piloted by Bruce Kendall, a New Zealand coach and former Olympic gold and bronze medallist. There were no witnesses---none that came forward, anyway---other than Julia Conrad, a German windsurfer who was riding along with Kendall.

Birkenfeld suffered severe traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury and the effects of nearly drowning. Doctors told her that only her athletic fitness kept her alive.

Kendall told Greek authorities that he turned his boat and saw a sailor coming right at him. Conrad supported that account. Birkenfeld, in a coma for a month and unable to think clearly long after, was in no position to dispute them. Until now.

Speaking by phone from Miami, she said, "For the first six months, due to my head injury, I had no reason to believe anything different from what they were telling me had happened."

Birkenfeld's parents flew in from Oregon after the accident. "While in Greece," she said, "my family was directly told several times, 'We have to keep a lid on this.' "

How do you say "stonewall" in Greek?

To this day, Birkenfeld said, "I don't have any memories from when I launched my board that morning. The [next] memory I have is 30 days later landing and I heard my sister's voice say, 'It's OK, Kim, you're in Portland now.' "

A Lear medical jet flew her home to Oregon. After initial rehab there, she convinced her parents that she needed to return to Miami, where she had her business, and "get back to my life because 37-year-olds don't live with their parents."

Later, with her mind clear, Birkenfeld heard about Kendall's account in the official report from the Greek Coast Guard. It was written in Greek and translated verbally to her parents.

"I said, 'That just doesn't make sense.' It would have been easier for me if everything supported that story. If you get hurt in a car accident you just go, 'Well, I did it to myself.' "

But there's Exhibit No. 1, her damaged board, behind her couch in Miami.

"It's not your priority to figure it out, but after 12 months when more pieces come together and the pieces of the puzzle are in your face and they point to something completely different, it's kind of sickening," she said.

"If I ran into the back left side of his coach boat [as reported], the front of my board would be damaged. The front five feet are unscathed. Only the middle of the board shows damage. Mr. [Kendall's] sworn statement to the Greek Coast Guard and those of his passenger are not supported by physical evidence.

"I know from my 18 years of sailing that I would not sail close to a coach boat, unless it was the U.S. coach who was instructing us."

Birkenfeld also said that as far as the Greek authorities are concerned, the matter is apparently closed. Fred Hagedorn, a U.S. team rep in Athens, received a copy of the report, also in Greek. Nobody I talked to knows of a copy in English.

Birkenfeld said, "Nobody from Greece has contacted me or US Sailing, to my knowledge."

Nor, she said, has she heard from Kendall.

"If I had been driving a powerboat involved in a serious accident, I would certainly contact the other person to check on their recovery and personally wish them a full recovery," she said. "Bruce has never contacted me.

"The world of sailing is so small. Everybody knows everybody. That's even more so in windsurfing. In '99 I paid Bruce to coach me in San Francisco. Back in the early 90s when I was a pro sailor on Maui his sister Barbara was a good friend of mine."

Barbara Kendall has two Olympic gold medals.

I couldn't reach Bruce Kendall for comment before Log deadline time. I didn't think I'd need to when I first planned to tell Birkenfeld's story, but now she is looking for better answers about what happened to her.

She is also on a mission.

"It's time to move forward and plan new adventures," she said. "But I will be heartbroken if what happened that day is swept under a rug and no improved safety guidelines eventually evolve from it. Doesn't the cause of a serious accident merit investigation so the risk of it happening again can be reduced?"

Indeed, a similar incident occurred in June involving a chase boat and a German crew sailing a Tornado catamaran.

"It is hard to comprehend how any sailor could be broadsided by a power boat in clear daylight," Birkenfeld wrote to Scuttlebutt, the sailing e-mail newsletter.

"I'm very concerned about power boats out on the race course on sailing days," she said. "We can never reduce all the risks, but we should take steps to [do so] on race days. If there is a mistake by a power boat there's no chance for us. It's like a car hitting a pedestrian."

Today she speaks clearly, if deliberately and with effort. In our long phone conversation she paused occasionally to renew her energy with a gulp of Gatorade.

"The first six months of my recovery were nothing short of the miraculous end of the scale," she said. "Six months into my recovery my walking was my worst problem, and then this past six months has been a little bit backwards. It gets kind of scary."

Later, she wrote in an e-mail, which is easier for her than talking: "I ambulate with a walker (like a Grandma) or use a wheelchair, and am still not cleared to drive for medical reasons. I'm at the hospital about 15 hours each week in physical, occupational and speech therapies, in addition to participating in research studies to help find a cure for paralysis at the Miami Project."

Only 5-4 and 124 pounds in her prime, she has seen her weight drop to 108 through loss of muscle mass. Her sense of balance has been a recent problem. In July she fell at home and broke both bones in her right forearm.

One Godsend: All No. 1-ranked U.S. sailors receive medical coverage, although hers runs out at the end of the year.

But two months ago she did get back on a sailboard, with Liljedahl never more than an arm's length away.

"I put on Magnus' bike helmet and my lifejacket that all the US Sailing Team members get from Gill. Mag was so wonderful. I had to convince him that I would not get injured. I pointed at the biggest sailboard, long and wide, and picked the smallest sail, and it was blowing like 4 [knots]."

It was her most encouraging moment.

"Your muscles sort of say, 'Oh, I remember.' Basically, I found out that I could windsurf better than I could walk.

"Somebody was giving a beginner lessons on shore. The instructor pointed at me and told the beginner, 'Wasn't that a nice tack and jibe she did? That's how you do it.' "