Chapter Nineteen
Excerpt from Testimony of Dr. Gerard Westin
Ada Olson: When did you learn about Indy’s injury?
Dr. Westin: The bruise?
Ada Olson: Yes. You were seeing her twice a week, correct? For the Fear Training?
Dr. Westin: Ha! I always found that amusing—a term of endearment really. It was just sports conditioning. And yes, I knew about the bruise.
Ada Olson: What did you do to help, if anything?
Dr. Westin: I told her to get the rotation. If she could get the rotation, she could land the jump.
Ada Olson: So you told her to keep injuring herself?
Dr. Westin: No—that’s not what I said. You don’t understand how it works.
Athletes fall down, and it hurts, but they get back up.
It’s a valuable life lesson. And with Indy, the psychology was even more complicated.
I believed she was holding back on purpose.
That as much as she said she wanted to go home, she didn’t want Dawn to claim a victory—or her mother for that matter. It was a deep inner conflict.
Ada Olson: You believed that she was falling on purpose? To be defiant?
Dr. Westin: Oh yes. I think her subconscious defiance toward Dawn and her mother was holding her back from getting the height she needed.
Ada Olson: Are you saying her falling was a form of self-harm?
Dr. Westin: In a way, yes.
Ada Olson: You didn’t see it as Dawn purposefully hurting her?
Dr. Westin: No.
Ada Olson: And the other girls? What about the things Dawn did to them?