“I was scared,” she said.

Sara was on her way to SRJC in October of 2007 when she lost control of her car on 101 and it flipped upside down into a ditch. Doctors originally thought she was in a coma, but her mother, Kristina Baker, insisted that she was in there. A neurology stroke team diagnosed her with the rare neurological condition, Locked-In Syndrome.

Her brain kept going, but her muscles didn’t, so she couldn’t eat, breathe, laugh or “drive to Bodega Bay” on her own.

For months, her eye muscles kept her in communication with the rest of the world. One blink means “yes,” two blinks means “no.” Sara can now spell out words through a computer system that reads her eye movements. By slightly opening her eye, she selects the row, and then the letter she wants to use.

Letter by letter, words appear on the computer screen, letting her say, “Please move my head.” or “I love you.” Her mother reminds visitors to let Sara finish what she has to say. “It is frustrating having people finish your sentences,” Sara said in perhaps her first interview since the accident.

After a year of shuffling from one hospital bed to the next, Sara is home with her mother. “I love it,” she said, “I hated having no privacy.” Kristina Baker’s house is filled with syringes, tracheostomy care kits, vapor tubes, suction kits, oxygen tubes and alerting beeps. “Every time there’s a beep, you’ll hear the scrambling of little feet,” said Don Price, Kristina’s boyfriend.

Besides having two nurses taking care of her, family members – who had to undergo special training at Kaiser – are always at her side. Mike Bartholomew, her stepfather, clears her throat when she sounds like a “’57 Chevy,” her brother Michael Baker greets her with, “Hey, punk!” and Price calls her “little princess” because everybody is under her command.

“They didn’t care in the hospital. They just wanted to do their jobs,” Sara said, referring to doctors and nurses. She remembers the nurses talking to her. “I didn’t like it when people would think I was retarded. People would talk really loud and really slow,” Sara said.

Even though family and friends visit Sara, it is still hard for her not to feel lonely. “Everyone has something…like my mom works and my brother and my friends have school.” She is also upset because she depends on others. “I should be on my own,” she said. “It is weird for a 20-year-old to be living at home.”

Sara’s relationship with her mother has helped her through difficult moments, and Sara describes it as “…unreal…she figured out I was conscious before the doctors.” Price admires the bond between Kristina and her daughter and explains the importance of this in Sara’s recovery, “In order for people to heal, you have to have people who care for you, who love you.”

Another important person for Sara is Daniel Hattem, who had a relationship with her for four years. They broke up a few weeks ago. “So Daniel broke up with me today. Hurts a lot but I will live, I am not worried that some other girl will snag him,” Sara wrote on a blog that was originally set up to document the triumphs and pitfalls of her recovery. The blog has attracted readers across the country.

Hattem held her hand all of the way, spent days with her at the hospital, read her books and played her favorite music. “I had a boyfriend but he broke up with me…It could be worse. He could have right after the accident. At least he waited,” she said.

What keeps Sara going is not easy to explain. “I don’t know. The want to be normal I guess,” she said. After living a year with Locked-In Syndrome, Sara has learned to be “more patient. I can’t make things happen any faster. I can only do so much,” she said. Time after time she has done what doctors said was impossible, like getting off the respirator and moving her head. “The doctors can blow it out of their asses!” Sara said.

Price adjusts Sara’s head and jokes with her. “You have to be kind of her cheerleader… You have to sorta have fun with it,” he said. Price stands at the bottom of Sara’s bed and says, “We won’t say it’s unfair, we’ll just say it’s unfortunate.”

Price remembers how some people said Sara’s life should end, and is repulsed by how these people wanted to play God. “You can’t do that! That goes against the natural aspect of life.”

There is no specific treatment for Locked-in Syndrome patients and recovery varies from patient to patient. “It’s easy to be in a worse place, and that place could be death,” Price said. “Wouldn’t you want to live?”

You can read updates on Sara by check