Resilience and Hope: Geralyn Ritter’s Story of Survival

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Text: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. 

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Slide, Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. 15 Years. A laptop on a desk, with a small potted plant on one side and a Travelers mug on the other. Text on the screen of the laptop: Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Joan Woodward appears on a video call in the top right-hand corner of the slideshow. 

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JOAN WOODWARD: Hi there, everyone. Good afternoon and thank you so much for joining us. I'm Joan Woodward and I'm honored to lead the Travelers Institute, as you know, the public policy and educational arm of Travelers. So welcome to this edition of Wednesdays with Woodward. It's going to be a really amazing one, I have to say.

This series we created, as you all know, during the pandemic, and we continue it because of you, because you're asking us to continue on talking about topics of importance, both in your personal lives and your business lives. So we're really glad you're here.

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Slide, About Travelers Institute (registered trademark) Webinars. The Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) educational webinar series is presented by the Travelers Institute, the public policy division of Travelers. This program is offered for informational and educational purposes only. You should consult with your financial, legal, insurance or other advisors about any practices suggested by this program. Please note that this session is being recorded and may be used as Travelers deems appropriate. Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. 

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Before we get started, I'd like to share our disclaimer about today's program. 

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Slide, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Resilience and Hope: Geralyn Ritter's Story of Survival. Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. 15 Years. Logos of MetroHartford Alliance, Master's in Financial Technology (FinTech) Program at the University of Connecticut School of Business, Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA), National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, and TrustedChoice.com. 

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I'd also like to thank our webinar partners today. We have a lot. Trustedchoice.com, MetroHartford Alliance, the National Association of Professional Insurance Agents, the Master’s of FinTech Program at UConn, and the Connecticut Business & Industry Association. And so, now on with our program. 

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Slide, Speakers. Pictures of Joan Woodward and Geralyn Ritter. Text: Joan Woodward, Executive Vice President, Public Policy; President, Travelers Institute, Travelers. Geralyn Ritter, President and Chief Executive Officer, Crowell Global Advisors; Author, Bone by Bone, A Memoir of Trauma and Healing. 

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Today, we are very grateful to have Geralyn Ritter join us. Geralyn is the President and CEO of Crowell Global Advisors, a global public affairs and government relations and public policy company. She has more than 25 years of business, legal and government experience with a focus on health care. So prior to her time in her current position, she's held senior roles, executive roles in pharmaceutical giant Merck and global healthcare company Oregon. 

Geralyn joins us today to share her story of survival from a sudden, terrible trauma and her path back to hope, life and joy. And so, Geralyn, welcome. We are so thankful and grateful you can join us today. We know we're going to learn a lot about your personal life. And I know this can be difficult for folks to hear, but I have to say, her story of resilience is so compelling. And as you know in the business world, we need that resilience muscle to carry us through not in just the business world, but in our personal lives.

So, Geralyn, take us back to that day. First of all, welcome. We're thrilled to have you.

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Geralyn appears on the video call. Slide, Resilience: An ordinary day, tragedy, recovery, perspective & joy. Geralyn Ritter. 

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Take us back. And I met Geralyn maybe 10 years ago or so, I'm going to say, through the Society of Corporate Governance, and have followed her career with admiration over that decade. And really, she's a powerhouse in the pharmaceutical industry, government affairs, legal industry and corporate governance. So, Geralyn, take us back to that May 12, 2015, day. It began as an ordinary day for you, right?

GERALYN RITTER: You're exactly right, Joan. And that's even now, it's what strikes me is just how normal it was. I live on the East Coast. I'm always between New York and Washington. I was jumping on that Northeast Regional train. I'd gone down to D.C. that morning, had meetings, had an evening event. I was speaking in Philly, so I-- it was just so normal. 

I had taken that train literally, I've thought about this, probably 100 times. I'd gone down early in the morning, and I was on my way home. As I rushed after this evening event in Philadelphia, I jumped on the train to make that last stop to get off near my home in New Jersey. And I sat down on the train, it's 9 o'clock at night. And I texted my husband, "Long day, leaving Philly, home soon."

And he texted me back, "Great, see you when you get here." Stevie, my youngest, I have three sons. My youngest was 8 years old at the time. And my husband texts me, "Stevie got a legitimate base hit at tee ball today." And I love my Stevie. He did not get a lot of base hits, so this was a big deal.

And I tell that story because it was just so ordinary. I said, "Great, can't wait to get home. See you and the boys." And I put my phone down. And you're always impatient when you're the next stop, but I had about half an hour. So I stood up, and I reached up to get something to read. I was trying to get something out of my bag off that luggage rack.

And I'm standing in the aisle of the train, and I lost my balance a little bit. And I was getting sort of annoyed. And I know that route very well. And I realized we were going fast, but I was impatient to get home. I was just kind of annoyed that I was losing my balance as I was trying to get something out of my bag.

And all of a sudden you feel that force of going around a curve. And at this point, I kind of braced myself, holding on to the luggage rack. And I felt like I was leaning forward. And I remember thinking, we're not tipping because trains don't tip. And you sort of doubt yourself in that moment.

And then there's this flash of realization that we were tipping over. And I remember hearing screams around me. And I remember my own scream, and that's my last memory. And it's my last memory for several days.

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Slide, May 12, 2015. A picture of a derailed train next to a highway. A red circle is drawn around a pile of crushed metal next to the train. 

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I would find out later that the train had derailed going 106 miles an hour around a curve designed for a maximum of 50. In fact, it's the steepest curve in the Northeast Corridor for trains. 

Meanwhile, back at home, my husband and I had just been texting a few minutes before. He was scrolling on his phone. And he got this news pop-up, CNN breaking news alert, "Amtrak derailed outside Philadelphia." And I traveled a lot. He was a little worried, but what are the chances that was my train? And he didn't know my train number.

And he tried to call me and no answer. And he tried to call me again. And a couple minutes later, he got the idea to use the Find My iPhone app. And he searched for my phone and what came up was sort of a Google's map background with an icon of an iPhone about 20 feet off a railroad track.

JOAN WOODWARD: Oh my gosh.

GERALYN RITTER: --location where it was--

JOAN WOODWARD: And he could see that, 20 feet off? He could see--

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GERALYN RITTER: You can see what comes up, there was like a map and the railroad track, and you can see the phone off on the side. And he just realized that I wasn't answering. Something was wrong. And he would end up running out the door, grabbing a close friend from next door.

I had three sons-- have three sons. They were 8, 12 and 15 at the time. And right as he's realizing this, my 15-year-old walks in and said, hey, dad, let's go watch the game. And he said, Jonathan was just like white. And he said-- my husband, Jonathan, said he had no filter. It was like, "I think mom's train just crashed. I got to go. You're in charge."

So my 15-year-old is Googling what's going on. He ran up and grabbed my 12-year-old. "I think mom's on a train crash." My husband grabbed a friend and just started driving to Philadelphia. No idea where they were going, but he just knew he needed to get there. And it's about an hour away from our house.

And they would end up searching all night long.

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Slide, Amtrak 188 - First Car. A picture of a bent train car laying beside a set of tracks. A tractor gathers debris, while emergency personnel stand near the tracks. 

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My husband went to the crash site. This image you're seeing on the screen right now was the first car. That's the car I was riding in. And that previous slide shows the whole train. And most of the cars look like train cars just tipped over. 

The first car was demolished, as you can tell, and many of the fatalities were in that car. Eight people died that night and hundreds were injured.

As I said, my husband would look all night long. First, he went to the crash site. Then they tried to go family assistance centers. And over the course of the night, finally they just started going to hospitals. "I'm looking for my wife. Her name is Geralyn Ritter."

And what really breaks my heart is my sons were at home, 12 and 15 years old, Googling Philadelphia hospitals, "We're looking for our mom. Her name is Geralyn."

And in the beginning, they would hear either perversely, "Can you put your parent on the phone?" "No, that's the whole problem." Or they would hear, "We don't have anybody by that name, but a lot of patients coming in. Check back later."

But as the night wore on, it dawned on my husband. He went to every hospital in Philadelphia. About 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, he thought, either if she was OK, even if she lost her phone, she'd have found a way to call me. Somebody would have called me. She's either gone, and the news reports were starting to break of fatalities.

And the text reports of that night between my sons and my husband, "Dad, have you found her?" "Dad, I've called this hospital." "Dad, I need my mom." "Dad, people are dead."

And like I said, my husband describes falling down to his knees in the hallway of some hospital early, frankly, the next morning, realizing that either I was so badly hurt that I couldn't reach out to him or I was gone. And he said it was the strangest prayer, but I just prayed, "Please, God, let her be really badly hurt."

[LAUGHS] 

And anyway, I know that I was found quickly, but I was a Jane Doe. If you think about it, if a man is thrown out of a train, he probably has a wallet in his pocket. Maybe not, but probably. A woman probably has her identification in a bag, in a purse somewhere. And so nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew where I was.

But I've since pieced together that somebody, a rescue worker, found me very quickly, which no doubt saved my life. They brought me to a small local hospital where they realized I was far too hurt to be treated there. But they got me on a ventilator. They were resuscitating me.

They got a chest tube in me. They stabilized my pelvis. And they put me on a helicopter to Penn Presbyterian, which at the time was the newest, literally just opened, Level 1 Trauma Center in Philadelphia.

The train crashed about 9:30. I was in surgery at the newest Level 1 Trauma Center in Philadelphia by midnight.

JOAN WOODWARD: Oh, wow. No one knew this? No one knew this?

GERALYN RITTER: But nobody knew where I was, or who I was. I was still a Jane Doe, but I was so incredibly fortunate that-- and it still bothers me, Joan. I don't know who found me. I've never been able-- I don't know who saved my life.

I've tried. I've tried through Philadelphia EMS and Fire Department to thank them. I've been able to thank the surgeons. I've been able to thank the doctors. I chair the patient advisory committee at the hospital where they saved me. But I still, to this day, don't know who saved me.

But they did. And the next morning, finally, after they'd gone round and round, a nurse was helping at a hospital. My husband and his friend call around, continually looking and asking again whether they'd identified anyone. And they got word that there was one, literally the last unidentified patient at any Philadelphia hospital from the train at the hospital where I was taken, there was an unidentified woman in surgery.

And they went there. And they walked in. And the receptionist at that hospital, they said-- explained what was going on. And they said "Oh, sir, I'm sorry. You'll need to wait for the chaplain." And my husband's heart just sank again. And the receptionist said, "Don't worry, it's standard procedure." But that didn't make him feel better.

And so he describes sitting in this waiting room being told he needed to wait for the chaplain. It turns out it was standard procedure. And it is the chaplain's job to make sure there's maybe a potential legitimate match or to counsel the family if there's not. But finally, my husband and his friend, our friend, were let up into the ICU. I had just come out of my first surgery.

And my husband looked at me and didn't recognize me. And he said to his friend, "I don't think it's her." And his friend said, "No, no, no, I think it is." And in my husband's defense, my eyes were taped shut. My forehead, of course, is all bruised and bleeding and covered in track dust.

I'm on a ventilator, so the bottom half of my face is covered. And I'm in a giant neck brace. So everything here is covered. I've had massive open abdominal surgery. And they just left my abdomen open because they knew they were just going to have to keep coming in. They couldn't repair everything all at once. So I'm covered in surgical drapes and I've got casts on my arms.

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Slide, Partial List of Injuries. I-S-S- score 57. A bullet point list. Text: - Rupture of diaphragm. Open pelvic ring fracture. Multiple, comminuted pelvic fractures, including of ilium, pubic rami, sacrum; S-I joint dislocation, widening. Laceration of spleen, hilum, uncontrolled. Flail chest. Multiple comminuted rib fractures, 3-10. Acute blood loss anemia. Acute respiratory failure. Atelectasis. Open wound of abdomen. Traumatic retroperitoneal hematoma. Large pneumothorax. Pelvic floor hernia. Sigmoid serosal tears. Rupture of bladder. Small intestine lacerations and perforation. Deep vein thrombosis. Fracture of superior process C7; transverse process fractures L2, L3, L4. Left hip Morel Lavelee lesion. Left wrist fractures. 

(SPEECH)
So he really could only see my eyebrows. His friend says, "No, no, dude, I think it is her. Those are her eyebrows." And sometimes you find humor in strange moments. My husband looked at his friend and he said, "How do you know my wife's eyebrows? 

[LAUGHTER] 

He said--

JOAN WOODWARD: Well, would your husband necessarily know what your eyebrows look like?

GERALYN RITTER: Exactly. 

JOAN WOODWARD: On a normal day.

GERALYN RITTER: He said, "I don't know, man. We were all at brunch the other day and I noticed her eyebrows." They were having this bizarre conversation as I'm laying there. And finally, they did get the idea to ask if there were personal effects. And the hospital brought out clothes, but they were unrecognizable.

And they brought out this little plastic bag with a big biohazard symbol on it, and there was jewelry inside. And I've joked with my husband. I said, "This would be a better story if you saw my wedding ring and said, that's my wife." And he goes, "Nah, a lot of women have rings like that."

[LAUGHTER]

But there was a bracelet and there was a watch. And he said, "I gave her those. I know that bracelet." And there's this heartbreaking text all night long between my husband and my sons. And the last one of the chain is, "We found her. She's alive."

JOAN WOODWARD: Oh gosh.

GERALYN RITTER: So you see up on the screen, the list of injuries. I won't belabor it, but it's kind of relevant how serious it was. The trauma surgeon, when they did identify me, the trauma surgeon came in and said to my husband, "Do you want to know what we did in surgery? Do you want to understand?"

He said, "No. Her family's all doctors. I got to call them." And so I have three siblings. They're all physicians. Their spouses are physicians. So my husband got one of my brothers on the phone, and the trauma surgeon's talking with him. And she says, "Let's just start at the top."

And she starts going down, and she's about halfway down, and my brother said, "I'm sorry, how is she still alive?" And the trauma surgeon said to him that it probably wouldn't be long, and that the family should fly in. My family's all over the U.S., we're very scattered. And that they should probably come to say goodbye.

And my physician brother flew into town with a dark suit in his bag for my funeral. And so they did not expect me to survive. You see, in the corner there, it's what's called an injury severity score. The NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board investigates accidents like this, of course, and there's a scoring system around the risk of fatality for injuries from this kind of disaster. And anything over 15 is considered serious trauma. I was a 57.

And so at least according to the NTSB, I was by far, frankly, the most injured passenger on the train who did not pass. And I’ll just-- the way it was explained to me as I came to several days later, and I'm still on a ventilator. It's blink once for “yes,” twice for “no.” Do you want to know where you are? And at this point, both my brothers, and my sister, and my parents, you really think you're dreaming. I'm like--

JOAN WOODWARD: Everyone came.

GERALYN RITTER: You’re so confused. I was like, it takes two years to get us all in the same place. And you're immobilized, so-- but I remember one of my brothers saying to me, "there was a crash." And he said, sis, you hit with such force that all my abdominal organs were thrown up into my chest.

They ruptured-- that diaphragm, that thick, leathery muscle that separates your chest from your abdomen was torn. My stomach was up above my heart. My colon was under my armpit. My spleen was destroyed. So obviously, there was a huge loss of blood. My lungs were collapsed.

My ribs were crushed. They call it a flail chest. It's not just broken ribs, but they were all pretty much broken in multiple places. So you really can't breathe. Your chest can't generate that negative pressure to breathe.

And my pelvis was the worst. The way it was described to me was that my pelvis was basically broken in half. The right side was not connected to the left side. And I had a traumatic penetrating wound that was open and dirty. Basically, the left, that left crest of your hip bone was gone.

So they didn't expect me to survive. And they knew it was going to be, if I did, quite a long road back. But I did. I'll fast forward now. We can talk some about this.

It would be-- I was in the hospital in ICU for quite a while. I had about six surgeries in rapid succession, some of them sort of marathon. One team comes in, replaces one thing, then the next surgical team comes in. They plated my ribs with metal plates to rebuild a rib cage. They tried to fix my backbone and all of these things.

But the incredible thing that really buoyed us, well, No. 1 was that every day I survived, my odds got better. I was not overwhelmed by infection, which they were very worried about.

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Slide, Gratitude. A picture of Geralyn lying on a stretcher and waving as a paramedic wheels her toward an ambulance. A picture of Geralyn in a wheelchair, smiling and raising her arms in the air. A group of people behind her cheer as someone wheels her up a ramp. 

(SPEECH)
But they scanned my brain so many times, and they couldn't believe it. 

My orthopedic surgeon, orthopedic trauma surgeon, very serious guy, would later say to me, he said, "Geralyn, I have no medical explanation for how your body absorbed that much force to do what it did to your bones, and you don't have a major brain injury." He said, "I don't know where the energy went."

And I mean, that's an extraordinary statement. I was most definitely concussed. Like, you don't-- I do government affairs, and I didn't know who the president was, so.

JOAN WOODWARD: Oh, no. Really? They asked you that question?

GERALYN RITTER: Yeah. I mean, "Do you know who the president is, do you know what year it is?" "No. No." But they did every scan imaginable. My brain wasn't bleeding.

And so, that was extraordinary. I broke three bones in my neck. I broke three bones in my lower back. I broke C7, but in just such a way that it didn't impinge on my spinal cord.

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The slideshow disappears. Joan and Geralyn appear side by side on the video call.

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They weren't sure I was going to walk again, but I wasn't paralyzed. And so I lived. At least my brain was intact, and I wasn't paralyzed. 

And we just said-- and I was so aware that eight people had died. And so we were just grateful. In the beginning, I mean, it was overwhelming, and confusing, and painful, but we were so grateful. And that picture you showed, around gratitude, that really carried us in the beginning. And we are a family that has faith, and that was important to us.

And even in the darkest times, there's something you can be grateful for. And so it was funny when I finally got out of the hospital, and they were transferring me to an inpatient rehab center. I'm strapped to a gurney being transported by ambulance. But that was the after picture. That was the better one.

And then after another several weeks, I got to go home, which was a beautiful feeling. But in many ways, the real start of the recovery journey. I thought I was going to go back to work in a few weeks. Bones heal in six weeks, right? You break your arm, you wear a cast. And I was so wildly unrealistic. And so unprepared for the pain and what a long journey it would be.

So to skip to the end, I would spend 2 1/2-- almost 2 1/2 years on total disability away from my job completely. And walking again, having lots and lots-- today I've had probably about 25 surgeries. And they rebuilt me. They rebuilt me.

JOAN WOODWARD: I mean, it's such a story of-- it's just such a story, it's just unbelievable. And I'm sure as you're going through it, you just thought, this is unbelievable this has happened to our family.

GERALYN RITTER: Oh my gosh. Yes. 

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Slide, 2015-2024: The Reality of Polytrauma. A bullet point list. Text: 25+ Surgical procedures. 2+ years of total disability + subsequent medical leaves. Pain - acute, chronic, nociceptive, neuropathic. The opioid odyssey. Mental health: Depression & PTSD. Trauma is a whole family experience. How do I identify? As a survivor, healthy but complicated. 

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JOAN WOODWARD: And the unknown. So for me, like, I like to control everything. Like, I'm very organized. And if one thing's out of place, it bothers me. So there were so many unknowns. How did you deal with that? I mean, you're a top executive at Merck.

You're sitting at the top of the world of a huge global pharmaceutical company, and then this happens, and you can't control anything. And so not knowing if you're ever going to get your life back. How do you-- so I want to apply this now to everyone on our call here. We've had 4,000 people register for this.

And I know this is captivating for a lot of people because I haven't heard a story like this literally in my entire life. And so I'm so, first of all, grateful and thankful for you to come on and share this with us and to have a sense of humor now. I know it's been almost 10 years, but looking back, how did you deal with that uncertainty? And maybe that helps people on the phone deal with uncertainty in their lives right now.

GERALYN RITTER: It was one of the toughest parts of the journey. You just put your finger right on it. I'm sure everybody on this call, we're doers. We like to think we're achievers. And if you set a goal and you put enough effort into it, you're going to achieve it. And we like to have a plan and to recognize that.

And there was only so much that the doctors could tell me because I had such a constellation of injuries. One doctor might tell me when my next surgery was or when this would heal, but nobody had the full picture. And that was difficult. The complete loss of independence. I mean, I had a global role at Merck.

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The slideshow disappears. 

(SPEECH)
I've traveled to so many really random, small places on much more unsafe modes of transportation. 

[LAUGHS] 

And so the complete to not even be able to get out of bed by myself and to have no idea really how long the journey would be was one of the toughest parts. And we can talk about this more later. The staying grateful, staying optimistic that you were going to get through this.

But I had to learn, the hardest part of me was to temper that with the realism of what I didn't want to believe, which is how long it was going to take, and the lack of certainty about the outcome. I could try as hard as I could at physical therapy. I could take my medicines regularly. But ultimately, I had to learn to have trust, have faith, and to let go of that need for certainty and try to find-- focus on what I could do.

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Slide, Reality. Pictures of Geralyn lying in bed holding a coffee mug, using a walker in a hospital room, sitting in a wheelchair wearing a neck brace, and lying on a couch holding her arm up in the air. A picture of a table covered in bottles and boxes of medications. 

(SPEECH)
I couldn't plan the future. I couldn't fix it. But ultimately, I came to realize there were things I could do. I could try to understand what was happening to me. I became a student of trauma. 

I read medical textbooks on pain. I read patient memoirs. I wanted to understand why I was yelling at my kids, why I was having some of the mental health challenges that I was because I thought PTSD didn't apply to me. You know, I'm not a combat veteran. No one tried to hurt me. Not a victim of domestic violence.

This was an accident. I'm a rational person and accidents happen. And that's not how it works. Our brains are wired a certain way. We have biochemical responses that affect our mood. And overwhelming chronic pain has a physiological impact.

So part of dealing with the uncertainty was to at least learn as much as I could. I found a lot of support in reaching-- in social connections, in friends, in my family. My kids, my kids ultimately, I think, saved me. When the depression set in, it was ultimately what got me out of bed.

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The slideshow disappears. 

(SPEECH)
JOAN WOODWARD: But let's talk about that because so many of us, again, like to be in control. First of all, it is no surprise to me that you had read textbooks and you're reading trauma. And in 2025, I just want to tell my viewers, we are going to have a huge focus on our well-being, and PTSD, and sleep, and mental health. And we have a huge-- we're going to roll it out in 2025-- focusing on this because so many people post-pandemic are dealing with this. 

And for, as you say, people like us, we're organized, we're high achievers, we're optimists. I'm going to say everyone on this call today is an optimist. And my CEO, Alan Schnitzer, talks about successful people are optimists. And I believe that. Pessimistic people have a very hard time achieving high success rates because they're pessimistic about the future.

So as an optimist, let's talk a little bit about pain management, because we know pain management, and we see this in our workers comp business too. There was a picture up there with all the pill bottles that you were taking. So were you on, I'm assuming you're on opioids.

And how did you deal with the pain and the opioid? Just walk us through that, because so many of our workers comp clients have to, they do, they have pain management through opioid management. How did that work for you?

GERALYN RITTER: It was a whole other challenging part of this journey. And when I was finally released from all the hospitals, and so you're not on IV anymore and you're needing to fill your prescription yourself. I did have a professional pain management doctor to advise me, which was very helpful, but I was on massive doses. In fact, at the time, the FDA recommended, they call it morphine milligram equivalents.

So you could take OxyContin, Oxycodone, Fentanyl, and say, OK, put that all together, was 90 milligrams. I was on 570. So I was on 150 micrograms of Fentanyl, and OxyContin, and Oxycodone. And at one point, I asked my orthopedic surgeon, it was a couple months after the accident. And I said-- even with all of this, when your rib cage-- my rib cage, it hurt to breathe.

I said, "It hurts to breathe." And you tell me to breathe deeply, to keep my lungs clear. I try to breathe as shallowly as I can every waking moment. And he said, "Geralyn, people tell me that one or two cracked ribs hurts for months." He said, "Your rib cage was annihilated."

And he was very straightforward with me. He said it was probably going to be eight months at least. And that wasn't what I wanted to hear, but it was actually really helpful that it wasn't that I wasn't being tough enough or I was being a wimp. I needed massive doses literally to feel able to breathe.

But it was a real challenge. I worked in the pharmaceutical industry. I had studied adherence and patient compliance. And boy, was it hard being on the other side.

When I was released home, I had 16 different prescriptions, many of them controlled substances, and for very good reasons, of course. Controlled means controlled, right? You can only get a 30-day prescription, and you can't refill it early. And you got to show up in person at the pharmacy. And it's all on prior authorization.

And then they usually need to special order it because they're not going to keep some of this stuff in stock. But the problem is, I can't drive. I can't stand. If you won't refill it until day 29, but then the insurance company wants 48 hours, and then the pharmacy wants to special order it, I'm in withdrawal and I can't breathe.

And my husband rolls me in the wheelchair to the pharmacist. And my joke is that all my injuries were mostly on my torso, so I don't--

JOAN WOODWARD: Face up, you look good.

GERALYN RITTER: I don't look like a train wreck. When you're telling the pharmacist, I need my Fentanyl and I need it now, and he's looking at you like--

[LAUGHS]

JOAN WOODWARD: I just can't believe you're laughing. I just can't believe how joyful you are. Like, I know you're grateful, but I just don't know how many people could come through this and just laugh about these things.

GERALYN RITTER: It was almost so crazy, Joan. You just had to take-- I just thought-- he would say, "Maybe you try the pharmacy across the street." I'm like, great. Now I'm really flagged for drug-seeking behavior because I'm driving all over town looking for my Fentanyl.

And the insurance company wants to make sure you're not selling it. So I needed to go do urine tests every month to prove I was taking the drugs. And I'm thinking, "Trust me, I am taking them." But also, my bladder was destroyed. So I can't really do that very easily.

So I would sit there trying to give a urine sample to prove I was taking my drugs, and it would take me hours. And they would be knocking on the door. I'm like, I can't. My bladder doesn't work.

And so I remember once sitting-- this is a crazy story. I shouldn't even tell it. But I'm sitting there, and I thought, OK, I'll try that trick where you turn on the water.

JOAN WOODWARD: Water. I've done that.

GERALYN RITTER: Just to get out of this place. But it was one of those automatic things.

JOAN WOODWARD: So you got to keep reaching over.

GERALYN RITTER: I'm on my walker with my pants around my ankles, I crutch over. I wave at the sink. And then I try to walker over to the toilet, then the water goes off. At one point, I took this roll of toilet paper. I was trying to throw it at the sensor. And you just have to say, you know what, this would be like a really bad comedy routine.

[LAUGHS]

So anyway, the drugs were a journey. And I went through a really-- after about six months, I was ready to start weaning. And I did it under medical supervision. And I was so impatient. It's so slow. But it's the way you have to do it, because one drug at a time, 25% down for the month, then 25%. Then after four months, you start the next drug.

And the problem is, you lower your pain-- you lower the opioids, so the pain is worse, and you've got the withdrawal. And I am so fortunate that I must not have the genetic makeup or the brain chemistry to have ever become addicted in the sense--

JOAN WOODWARD: I was going to ask you about that.

GERALYN RITTER: Yeah, the medical definition of that craving, I did not have that. But absolutely, you're physically dependent. I mean, 100% of the people that take high doses of Fentanyl for seven months, you're going to be, your body is accustomed. And so the nausea, the chills, the shakes.

I really was at one of my lowest points. I was almost at the end of my rope because it felt like just insult on injury, all the physical pain, plus the stigma, plus I'm now going through withdrawal on top of it. It's when I started looking to other therapies like meditation, and breathing, and yoga.

And I was always a huge skeptic. I was a snob on those things. It was, yoga was for people that didn't want to sweat when they exercised. And when I had my sons-- I was so ignorant about this stuff. When I had my sons, I had refused to go to those classes because I told my husband, I had been breathing for 30 years and I was quite sure I knew how to do it.

JOAN WOODWARD: Lamaze, right? Lamaze classes.

GERALYN RITTER: Yeah. I was like, nope, nope, I don't have time. I'm busy. I'm not doing breathing classes. I know how to breathe.

But when I was really going through all of that, I was desperate. And I think sometimes when you're at your lowest, being open to things that you might have dismissed before as tools to help you, you're more open to it and you should be. And I got an instructor that would come to my house and help me. And it helped.

It gave me back a little bit of a sense of control and agency over my body. There was one thing I could do that didn't require a prescription and this incredible difficulty. And I still today, I try to lean on those sort of techniques, in conjunction with other types of medicine. But it did help.

JOAN WOODWARD: And I'm going to point out here, again, this wasn't a setup, but we're going to have a whole session on mindfulness and yoga. And for those skeptics out there, like I was for many, many years about mindfulness and breathing and yoga and ways to help yourself in alternative methods versus just going to the gym on a treadmill or running a half marathon, which I probably will never do in my life.

But anyway, so I want to get back to resilience. And a lot of this was very alienating for you. So you were experiencing all of these emotions, physical pain, just as you say, it was PTSD. You don't want to admit that it was. You weren't in a combat zone.

GERALYN RITTER: It was.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Keys to Resilience: GRASP. A bullet point list. Text: Gratitude & Optimism. Realism & Acceptance. Action-orientation. Social Connections. Purpose & Perspective. 

(SPEECH)
JOAN WOODWARD: So those alienating feelings for you. 

And I know you had your family, and you had your faith. And I want to talk about that as well. But I want to talk about what are the keys to resilience for you and how you kind of came up with this GRASP kind of notion, or just talk to us a minute about how the rest of us on this call can learn to be more resilient. I think Sheryl Sandberg is the one who said, "Resilience is like a muscle. You have to exercise it, otherwise it goes away."

GERALYN RITTER: That's exactly right. And sometimes we think of resilience as the same thing as strength, and it's really not. You can think of a giant oak tree and it's strong, but if it blows over, it's not getting back up. And resilience is getting back up.

And I was thinking about this topic, and maybe it's kind of corny, but it sort of made the mnemonic GRASP. And GRASP means to hold on tightly. And I thought maybe that's not wrong. And I've talked about how gratitude and optimism was really important.

I always thought I was going to get better. I didn't-- I gradually came to accept I'd never be as strong as I was. I'm always going to be sort of medically vulnerable and a complicated patient, but I never let myself think I was not going to get better. And we did have a lot to be grateful for.

One of the hardest parts for me and this balance between optimism, but also, you can't go through life with rose-colored glasses. And I kind of set myself up for failure. I was so optimistic. I was calling my boss a couple months after the accident, telling him I'd be back in six weeks. And then I would need another surgery, and then I would call him and say, it's probably going to be another month.

And then I'd need another surgery, and I'd tell him, it's probably going to be another two months. And then I'm weaning off the painkillers, and it was almost a full 9, 10 months after the accident, and I found out I was going to need a massive reconstructive surgery. I was going to spend a whole nother summer, full year after the accident, back on the walker, 10 days in the hospital and reconstructing my left side.

And I finally called my boss, and I said, "You know what, I have no idea when I'm coming back." And he said, "Yeah, I know." And everybody knew but me. My mother would tell me that she would hear me on the phone telling my boss it was going to be another month. And she said she would leave the room and cry because she knew it wasn't true. But nobody wanted to burst my bubble.

But I set myself up for failure by putting these artificial deadlines and nobody wanting to tell me that I was crazy. They didn't want me not to be optimistic, but then I think it made the depression worse because I felt like, I'm not trying hard enough. Maybe I'm wallowing, maybe I'm allowing my-- and it's hard to be grateful for pain forever, and I needed--

Like, when the doctor told me, it's probably going to be eight months until you can breathe, and I needed to hear that. I've talked a little bit about an action orientation, figuring out things you can do. I had to reorient. There was so much I couldn't.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Action Orientation. Pictures of Geralyn using a walker, and poking a mound of clay with a pencil. A graphic of a clock pointing to 3:00. 

(SPEECH)
But on the other hand, I've worked all my life. I've always worked after a short maternity leaves. And the clock you see there on the screen is kind of my symbol. It was months after the accident, I'm in my downstairs hospital bed. I didn't see my master bedroom for two years. 

So I'm downstairs. And all three boys walk in from school at 3:00 in the afternoon, and it hit me. I was like, I've never been home at 3:00 in the afternoon when they come home from school. I hear about their day four hours later at dinner. And I thought, get yourself out of this bed. And it was like, I have this afternoon time with three boys who have been terribly worried about me.

And there's a really wonderful book that I read that talks about “timefulness,” and it talks about being friends with time. And time was always-- anyway, I started to think about time differently. And you start to say, I've got this time. What are you going to do with it?

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Action: Reframing. A picture of three boys standing at a kitchen counter, and a picture of a bowl full of chips with a sign on the front that reads, Life is a gift. Quotes. Survivor's pride. Reframing is the heart of resilience. Post-traumatic growth. Thank you God for wrinkles! Kate Bowler. 

(SPEECH)
And this silly picture there, it's the reframing. My boys and I making a really ugly homemade cake on a weekday afternoon. And it's finding those things you can do. 

There's a quote there from an author I like, she's a professor at Duke, and she was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer when she had a two-year-old toddler. And she wasn't expected to live. And she found herself, she did beat the odds. And she said she looked in the mirror one day and she had wrinkles. And she said, "Oh my God, thank God for wrinkles. I was never supposed to get wrinkles."

And I thought, that's a great example of reframing. You hear about survivor's guilt or post-traumatic stress, but there is a flip side, survivor's pride and the growth that comes from going through something like this. So that was the G, the R, the A.

The S is Social Connections. There's a ton of medical literature out there on all sorts of folks and situations, and those with networks of friends and family and that network of social support live longer, report less pain. It really is important. It's not a "nice to have." And I was I think one of those people that focused on my family and focused on my job, and friends were nice, but I wasn't always the first one at the birthday party.

(DESCRIPTION)
The slideshow disappears. 

(SPEECH)
But I really needed my friends. I needed my friends to make me laugh. And that was being intentional and deliberate about your broader network. We all need that. And my last thing was Purpose and Perspective. An event like this makes you really think about how you're spending your time. 

When I finally did go back to work 2 1/2 years later, it was much more intentional. I was much more thoughtful about why I was doing it. And I think that's part of resilience too, kind of knowing your why, as they say. Something like this really makes you think about that.

JOAN WOODWARD: I love all that. And I'm guilty of, I probably don't have as many close friends in my life because I've focused so much on my family. I have four kids, for those of you who don't know, and my career. And both of those things are so important to me. And it crowds out the rest of your me time, your personal time to develop and nurture, relationships take time.

So I think my strange piece of advice is, make more friends and make friends that count in your life that are precious to you. And you're right about intentionality, especially in our busy lives, spending that time on intentional things that you're going to get feedback and feel hopeful.

I want to get to some audience questions because there's so many coming in. First of all, everyone saying it's a miracle. Thank you so much for sharing your story. They're learning so much about resilience. But I want to talk about caregivers because you've advised that these people who took care of you--

Is there anything you would advise people who may be taking care of elderly folks or maybe a disabled child, what advice do you have to caregivers? Because that can be-- and how did your husband, how did he cope with it? Did he pull in other resources? I mean, give us advice on being a caregiver to someone.

GERALYN RITTER: Sure. It's such an important topic. I'm really glad you mentioned it. And the experience was extremely difficult on my husband and I. And I will share, and I put this in my book, it nearly broke our marriage. And we are still married after 27 years.

But there was quite a while in there that I doubted we would make it. And the stress was just overwhelming. And I thought I was a very grateful patient. He doesn't remember it that way.

[LAUGHS]

And it's natural. I know now from my research, that was totally to be expected. And I wish we had more counseling about this up front. And I've done some research. Caregivers have almost-- caregivers of folks that are in the ICU have almost the same rates of PTSD, of depression, and also later on, of physical consequences, obesity, heart issues. So it's a really serious thing.

And it sounds trite, but like they say on the airplane, put your own oxygen mask on first. It's really important. And whatever that means for you. And maybe it means the me time. Maybe it means exercise. Maybe it means making sure you as a caregiver have the social support that you need.

But one thing I would say is, don't expect your loved one that you're taking care of to understand. I thought I did, and we had a strong relationship, and I was trying. I couldn't. And Jonathan, my husband, couldn't understand where I was. And he wanted to.

JOAN WOODWARD: He wanted to.

GERALYN RITTER: But when your world, as a patient, has fallen apart, I was trying to get through the day. And I couldn't understand. We said terrible things to each other. I mean, I said to my husband, "Why are you so tired?" And he's thinking, "Because I'm taking care of you."

[LAUGHS]

And then he said to me, like, "Well, what are you doing? Your whole job is to sit around here and get better?" I'm thinking, yeah. Everybody's come in the house asking about me, not about him. And his reaction was one of anger. He had a lot of anger about the accident, about the safety measures that weren't in place, about the federal cap on damages. 

And I was just sad. And so he needed, he wanted to shake his fist, and that was his-- And that was the last thing I could hear. And so we really struggled to be in the same place, even though he was doing a tremendous amount to help me. We were trying and it was still hard.

So I think it goes back to making sure you're taking care of yourself because the person you're taking care of, I think, cannot understand how hard it is for you. But there's no weakness, there's no shame in acknowledging that you need that support, too. But you're going to have to take-- you're going to have to be the one that initiates what that looks like, whether it's support, whether it's therapy, whether it's friends, whether it's time off. But just muscling through is not a recipe for success.

JOAN WOODWARD: Really, really, really good advice. And I love how you say no shame, no blame, placing blame on anyone about what might have happened. Did you have any anger towards, for example, the engineer of the train? Was the engineer found at fault? Like, give us, fast forward to what happened? NTSA did an investigation, I'm sure. And what was the outcome of all that?

GERALYN RITTER: It's really interesting.

JOAN WOODWARD: Not that that part matters, but I think for closure, people kind of want to know what happened.

GERALYN RITTER: And some people have different reactions. For some people, it matters a lot. And I know some of the families of the deceased, for very understandable reasons, it mattered a lot. For me, it didn't. By all accounts, he had been a model employee, had a passion for trains since he was a young-- since he was a boy.

He was not on his phone. He was not on drugs. The official result of the investigation was that he lost situational awareness, kind of forgot where he was and distracted driving, I guess we would call it. And that's not very satisfying, but I'm not sure what would be. Would it be satisfying if he'd made a big--

And so, for me, I thought, what do I get out of-- he's not going to drive a train again, obviously. What do I get out of him going to jail? And so it was not-- he, ultimately, after a lot of legal back and forth, charges were filed. He was not convicted. That's kind of a separate story.

But I was asked if I wanted to testify, and I said, no. I mean, you can subpoena me, but it's not-- no, I don't.

JOAN WOODWARD: You don't need the negativity. I mean, you're on a positive trajectory.

GERALYN RITTER: Well, it wasn't personal to him, and more, I was focused more. There are technologies called positive train control. We have self-driving cars. The technology has existed for decades, and it has been recommended by federal regulators for decades. Now it's required after this accident, that automatically tracks and slows a speeding train. If a train is going into a curve at twice, more than twice, it automatically brakes it. And they had installed it on every curve in the Northeast Corridor, except that one.

JOAN WOODWARD: Except that one?

GERALYN RITTER: Except that one.

JOAN WOODWARD: But that was the most dangerous one, you said.

GERALYN RITTER: It was. So I think the rationale, I could be wrong. In fact, it was installed southbound, but not northbound. Was that it was that trains surely wouldn't go that fast pulling out of Philadelphia. I don't know. So that was more the frustration and that's where I focused my advocacy. And it was, we got to get this. And it is now more seriously mandated. But not the first one.

JOAN WOODWARD: And you've been back on a train since?

GERALYN RITTER: Irony of ironies. I still live in New Jersey. My youngest son is in high school now, but my job is in Washington, and I take the train almost every week back and forth. And when I pass that curve, I feel it in my bones.

It's not a flashback. I know exactly where I am. But I bow my head and I try to remember those not as fortunate. But I'm-- it was a sort of a determination that I'm going to be in charge of this. And if I want to continue working on the East Coast, I'm going to retire when I'm ready to retire. And I had my husband ride with me the first time because I didn't know how I would react.

And when the conductor came and took my ticket, I handed it to him. I said, "You know, my last train ride was 188." This was just about six months. And he looked at me like I was going to jump at him. And I said, "Just tell the driver to go slow."

[LAUGHTER]

JOAN WOODWARD: He said, "OK, lady."

GERALYN RITTER: But yeah, I do. I don't love it, but I am not scared. In fact, I joke with my colleagues. I'm like, "I'm the safest person to travel with because what are the chances?"

[LAUGHS]

JOAN WOODWARD: Oh gosh. I want to get to a couple audience questions. And I know we just have so many of them. And I apologize ahead of time. We can't get to all of them. But a couple of people want to talk about the book, Bone by Bone. So this is a two-part question.

And then I want you to talk about finding your sparkles, or reframing, changing your perspective. Talk about your sparkles. Talk about the book. Did it help you get through the experience? I'm sure it's helped others build resiliency. And just, again, I go back to your laughing about this, and it's just so incredible to think where you've come from. And a lot of people in the comments are saying, this makes my pain or this makes my daily struggle with X, Y and Z, whatever they're dealing with, this is just, I can do-- I can handle this little thing because look what Geralyn has done. OK, the book and sparkles.

GERALYN RITTER: Sure, sure. It's funny, I had all this time, and I was just-- so many extraordinary things, things that my kids would say that I didn't want to forget or something, and I was just started taking notes. And I had a really very difficult surgery about a year after the accident. It was that big reconstruction.

I coded, they had to bring me back. And I was telling-- I had gone in just to visit in my wheelchair. I wasn't at work, obviously, but I'd gone back in to Merck just to say hi to colleagues. And I was sitting with our CEO, Ken Frazier, for those of you that know Merck, just an extraordinary leader.

And I was sitting in his office chatting with him. And he said, "Geralyn, you know you have to write a book." And I said, "Ken, like, I don't want to be like I'm so strong." I said by the grace of God. And he said, "No, no, no. You're thinking about this wrong." He said, "There's hope. There's things that helped you."

And he quoted scripture to me. He said, "The Bible says, don't hide your light under a bushel." He said, "You have a story, and you need to tell it." And it kind of flipped a switch for me. And I said, "You know what, I'm going to do that. And if nobody needs it, great."

If nobody needs it, that's good. I said, "But if somebody takes some hope, or if a practitioner says, maybe I should counsel my patients a little bit different." If there's some way that it helps other survivors, then the way I think about it is, at least one good thing came out of the accident. And I've had this experience, I can't change it.

But then the question is, what do you do about it? And so I had the opportunity just last week to speak at the American College of Surgeons. There was a big convention. And I was talking to them more from a medical perspective about the trauma, the patient perspective.

And a woman stood up in the audience and she said, "You may not remember me, but I was the nurse at your bedside when your husband identified you." Blew me away, almost cried in front of 2,500 people. And so, to me, this is, it's the one thing I can do. And so I donate all the proceeds from the book to the American Trauma Society and to trauma medicine or the Trauma Survivors Network, which is like a peer counseling network for survivors.

In principle, I don't want to make a dime off of this. But it was a feeling, a little bit of pay it forward. And it was the one thing I could do. And so I talk about the experience. And I talk about the mental health aspects because in my last job, I reported to the CEO. I thought, if I can't be open about having gone on this journey, then who can be?

We need to destigmatize some of these things. So that's why I wrote it.

JOAN WOODWARD: It's a wonderful book. And it's a wonderful book.

GERALYN RITTER: Thank you. It's raw. I have a very small publisher. And my husband, I'm so grateful he agreed. I said, if I whitewash all the ugly parts, then I'm doing a disservice to folks. And so I wrote it not too long after, it took a while to get it out, but it's what happened.

JOAN WOODWARD: It's amazing. I want to ask you one more question coming in from our audience here. So, again, before you were a very big executive, worked for the CEO of Merck. I mean, reporting right to a CEO of this global pharmaceutical. Tell us how your approach to leadership has changed because of what you've been through, resilience. And everyone on our call is a leader or a manager of people. So give us some advice about what we can take away from your book and your experience to be better leaders for our folks.

GERALYN RITTER: Yeah. The word that comes to mind, and in some circles it's a little bit of a buzz word right now, but it really resonates with me, is authenticity. And when I finally went back to work, I did so very intentionally. My friend said to me, "Why on earth are you going back to the corporate world after what you've been through?"

And I thought about the answer to that question. I thought, I work in health care.

[AUDIO OUT]

What we do. I believe in what we do. And making an impact. And that's-- I want to spend my time that way. But part of that is also being without-- I don't want to be train wreck girl, right? I don't want the accident to define me, but it is very much part of who I am. And I try to be very open about that.

I joked with my new boss at a job. I said, "I'm not interviewing. I really do have that many doctor's appointments." And so, I need-- there's some-- and so I think there is an authenticity and an empathy in the way that I work with my teams that might not have been as strong before. And I feel like people sense that and react to that. And it creates a little bit of a safe space for us to work together.

JOAN WOODWARD: I can't think of a better way to end our session. And I can't believe this time has flown by. I try to keep these to an hour, Geralyn, but I am so grateful for reconnecting with you in the last month or so. We saw each other at a big conference in New York.

And again, I went to clean out my office the other day just because I need to do it every so many months. And I found the email you sent me, literally, I think it was more than 10 years ago because it was before the accident. I found that email. I was going to show it today, and it was just, you were so grateful then that I came and spoke to your group. And it was just so authentically written in your own voice.

So you were authentic and genuine with empathy towards me many, many years ago. And this is not a new trait for you, I'm sure, but I love how you made this into your leadership ethos now. And it does help others to hear that because I'm kind of a buttoned-down person, too. And I think the empathy part of being a leader, and authenticity part, is incredible.

So I cannot thank you enough from the bottom of my heart. And again, everyone on our call putting into the chat and the Q&A saying thank you for sharing your story of resilience. And thank you for the book, and your really wise words and wisdom. And we wish you nothing but the best with your continued recovery, and your amazing sons, and your amazing husband. And kudos to your support network, which I'm sure was very difficult to go through. But you're here today, you're working, you're sharing and you're just a role model for all of us.

GERALYN RITTER: Well, I am so honored. I mean, Joan, I have admired your work for so long. And I am really honored to speak with this group. It's very special to me. Thank you.

JOAN WOODWARD: Thank you, Geralyn. Really, take care.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Take Our Survey. Link in chat. 

(SPEECH)
GERALYN RITTER: Bye, bye. 

JOAN WOODWARD: OK, folks, I want to ask you a few questions. So take the survey in our link right now. It's in the chat. Please let us know what you thought about today's program and also what you'd like to see in the future.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Travelers Institute Risk & Resilience. Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. 

(SPEECH)
If you're a podcast person, please add our new podcast, the Travelers Institute Risk & Resilience podcast on Spotify or Apple, wherever you get your podcasts. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Upcoming Webinars: December 4: Labor Market Outlook: A Conversation with LinkedIn (registered trademark) Economist Dr. Kory Kantenga. December 11: Reducing Wildfire Risks One Tree at a Time. January 15: U.S. Economic Outlook with Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Dr. Mark Zandi. Register: travelersinstitute.org. 

(SPEECH)
We have some great webinars coming up, folks. So on December 4th, we're going to talk with LinkedIn's Labor Economist. So the labor force, labor shortages, wage gains with Kory Kantenga for a rundown on what's going on in the labor market. December 11th, I'm going to be joined by our Personal Lines President and CEO, Michael Klein. 

He's going to talk with Jad Daley, President and CEO of the American Forests, and talk about wildfire risk around the country. Wildfire is blowing up. I'm here in Hartford today, and this is my Hartford office, for those of you who wanted to know where I was today. And blowing up in Connecticut, and New York, and in Massachusetts, as well as, of course, California and Colorado is always a risk.

And then on January 15th, Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moody's, is going to join us for an economic outlook for 2025, and what the presidency and the new Congress means for your business. So please tune in on January 15th to get the scoop on that.

(DESCRIPTION)
Slide, Wednesdays with Woodward (registered trademark) Webinar Series. Watch. travelersinstitute.org. Connect. Joan Kois Woodward. Listen. Wherever you get your pods. 

(SPEECH)
Again, Geralyn, Thank you. God bless you. And everyone out there, be well, my friends. We'll see you in a few weeks. 

(DESCRIPTION)
Text: Travelers Institute (registered trademark). Travelers. travelersinstitute.org.

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