“I’m never without pain,” Debra Triplett said. Her fingers trace the faint scar on her neck where the doctors had to cut to access her spine. “I have a headache right now, but I’m used to it.” What Triplett can’t get used to is how she was injured in the first place, and the legal fight she has had to wage since.

-On the evening of Dec. 5, 2001, Triplett, then 45, sat down in her Communication Studies class in Mendocino 2009. The teacher of the class, John Theobald, was reviewing material for the upcoming final exam. Triplett said someone had stacked a pile of desks and chairs to within a foot of the ceiling, right next to the desk in which she sat.

-Several minutes into the class, Triplett heard loud footsteps either in the hall outside or in an adjacent room. The disturbance caused the pile of desks to shift, while the topmost chair fell down, striking Triplett in the neck and shoulder. Surprised by the accident, but not suffering any apparent injury, Triplett stayed in class. However, she left early when her head began to hurt.

-“My fingers started going numb on the drive home,” she said. “That’s when I knew something was really wrong with me.”

-Several months and several doctors later, a magnetic-resonance image confirmed that Triplett had a herniated disk in her neck, causing her pain, numbness and vision problems — requiring surgical treatment. The surgeons made an incision in her throat, pinned her trachea and esophagus to the side and hammered a piece of a cadaver’s bone into her cervical spine, fusing three of her vertebrae. A metal plate and four screws hold the bone graft in place.Even after the surgery, Triplett said she continues to suffer.

-“They had me on Vicodin and Percodan, and now I’m taking methadone. And I guess I’ll be on that for life.”

-Because Triplett was expected to need pain medication every day for an extended period of time, her pain management specialist prescribed methadone because it is less addictive than other narcotics. Triplett also takes medication for depression and anxiety, conditions she said have been as destructive to her life as the physical pain.

-“I usually sleep in a recliner, because it’s too hard to get out of a bed,” said a teary-eyed Triplett. “But some days I just can’t bring myself to get up at all. My life as I knew, it is over.”

-Much of Triplett’s anger and depression stems from the approximately $100,000 in medical bills she owes for the surgery and therapies.

-She has a stack of more than 20 unopened bills she has received in recent weeks that she can’t even bring herself to open.

-In 2002, Triplett filed suit against Sacramento State, claiming that the university created an unsafe environment for her, and is seeking reimbursement for medical expenses and loss of income.

-The university, however, tells a different story about what happened that night, and is fighting Triplett’s lawsuit. As is common in cases when an institution of the state is sued, the university’s defense has been taken over by the Attorney General’s office.

-Deputy Attorney General Stephen Pass, lead counsel for the defense, disputes Triplett’s account in its entirety.

-When asked if the state’s position on Triplett’s injury was that she was not injured by unsafe conditions, Pass replied, “Basically.”

-He declined to elaborate, citing his office’s standard policy against commenting on pending litigation.

-Triplett’s attorney, Leonard Esquina, said that the state’s position is that the accident never occurred and that Triplett’s injuries are not as serious as she claims.

-“(Pass) basically said my client is lying about it all and implied that she underwent surgery for a herniated disk and had a metal plate and screws put in her spine just to get money from the state,” Esquina said. “(Pass) makes light of it.”

-Even if Triplett’s account of what occurred in the classroom is true, according to California law, the university may still not be liable for her injuries.

-Donna Selnick, an attorney for Sac State who is not involved in Triplett’s case, said, “We’re allowed to make mistakes and then to correct them. It doesn’t make (those mistakes) actionable.”

-In other words, if a Sac State employee acts within the scope of their employment duties, and makes a decision that causes injury to another person, neither that employee nor the university may be held liable.

-“Those are called immunities,” Selnick said. “(Without them) people would not be able to make decisions and follow through with them. We’d all be sued a hundred times a day.”

-Triplett isn’t buying any of these claims. To this day, she said, “I am shocked that Sac State didn’t just send me to a doctor and take care of this.”

-Before the accident, Triplett said she was working full-time, taking classes and raising children.

-Now her days are filled with doctor’s appointments, court depositions and worrying about her mounting debts.

-“I always wanted to go to college,” she said. “I’d be the first person in my family to get a degree.”

-Triplett has one more class to complete in order to graduate, but she said she couldn’t concentrate enough to pass it because of the effects of the pain medication.

-“I owe $28,000 in student loans for a degree that I’ll probably never get.”Still, Triplett promises to see this matter through.

-“I don’t care how long the battle takes,” she said. “I’m a fighter and I’m going to fight.”

-Triplett recently placed a classified ad in The State Hornet, asking for any students who were in Theobald’s classroom when the accident occurred to contact her. She hopes that someone remembers the event the same way she does and can serve as a witness in her case.

-“I stay hopeful … that this will work out right.”

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