Frederika Sommerville of Chadron nearly died 17 years ago after being bitten by a poisonous spider. Although the 73-year-old Sommerville has been wheelchair-bound since then and continues to suffer other negative effects from the spider bite, she hasn’t let that stop her from being positive or doing volunteer work and other acts of kindness to uplift people in the Chadron community.
JEFF FIELDER Editor
CHADRON – Frederika Sommerville of Chadron woke up on Saturday, June 7, 2003, feeling a little fatigued. As the day went along, she also started to feel a slight headache, and she had chills.
“I just didn’t feel right,” said Sommerville, who was living with her family in Bridgeport at the time.
That wasn’t going to stop her, however, from celebrating her son’s 17th birthday that day. One of her plans was to treat her son, Danny Case, to a nice dinner at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery in Scottsbluff.
Her son ordered first, excitedly asking for steak and potatoes. Sommerville then gave her order – just coffee and a slice of garlic toast.
“My son looked at me and said, ‘Is that all you’re going to have?’” Sommerville recalled. “I said, ‘Yes, that’s it. I’m not that hungry, and I’m cold, too. In fact, I’m freezing in here.’”
Sommerville’s chills only got worse from there, so after dinner, they stopped at Target to buy a blanket, which she wrapped herself in on the drive home back to Bridgeport. She also asked her son to crank up the heater, even though it wasn’t cold outside.
“I just wasn’t feeling good,” she said. “I figured I was getting a bad cold or the flu.”
Not long after they got home, Sommerville went to bed, piling more blankets on top of herself. She ended up vomiting multiple times during the night, but when she finally fell asleep and woke up the next day, she didn’t remember being sick.
“My son said he helped take care of me during the night, but I didn’t remember any of that,” she said. “That was a big sign that something was wrong.”
You can read the entire story in the November issue of Nspire Today! magazine. A one-year subscription (12 issues) is only $15. You may sign up for a subscription by sending $15 to Nspire Today!, P.O. Box 454, Scottsbluff, NE 69363, or you may pay with a credit card by calling 308-220-8865.
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