Water slide fall results in Oakdale woman's death

Mother hits head; organs will be donated to save lives

By KEVIN VALINE
kvaline@modbee.com

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An Oakdale mother of two suffered a fatal injury over the weekend after hitting her head on a homemade water slide set up for an end-of-summer party at her home.

Heidi Brunk, 45, is on life support at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto so her organs can be removed for donation, her husband said Tuesday.

"She will be saving a lot of lives," said sister-in-law Cheryl Brunk. "That's the only positive side we can see today."

Heidi Brunk

About 75 family and friends were gathered at Heidi and Jim Brunk's Sierra View Drive home on about 50 acres for a Saturday barbecue.

Family members said the slide was about 10 feet wide and 100 feet long and started on a small grass hill behind the patio. The slide consisted of plastic sheets kept wet with sprinklers on each side. Rolls of hay wrapped in plastic lined the slide's sides to keep people on the plastic. The slide ended in a 10-foot-by-10-foot, 2½-foot-deep plastic-lined pit filled with water.

"If you sat on your butt and inched your way forward, you might slide 6 to 8 feet," Jim Brunk said. "It's one of those things where you didn't always make it to the bottom. It was very gradual. Our first thought we had is someone's safety."

Children as young as 7 or 8 and adults as old as their 50s used the slide throughout the day, Jim Brunk said, going downhill on inner tubes, plastic boats, boogie boards or their stomachs. His wife's accident happened about 8:30 p.m., just as the party was winding down.

Jim Brunk said Saturday was the third time the slide had been used, and there had been no injuries until his wife's.

He said he did not see his wife fall but heard from others at the party that she was on an inner tube that got stuck. She tried to stand, lost her balance and fell backward, hitting her head.

"When you think about it, it seems so surreal," Cheryl Brunk said. "People do that, they bump their head and maybe have a concussion. She just hit it the right way to have a very severe in-jury."

Oakdale Rural firefighters responded to the accident. Brunk was taken by helicopter to Doctors Medical Center in critical condition. Deputy Royjindar Singh, a Stanislaus County sheriff's spokesman, said Tuesday that a cause of death has not been determined and the coroner's office would perform an autopsy.

Jim Brunk said his wife has been pronounced brain dead. In addition to her husband, survivors include her children, Preston, 11, and Shelbi, 8.

Family friend Greg Rivera said he was among the 30 family members and friends who gathered at Brunk's hospital room about 1 a.m. Sunday to say goodbye as a Catholic priest baptized her and administered last rites.

Rivera said his friend had an infectious smile, a great laugh and a knack for making people feel at ease.

"When you meet her for the first time, you want to come up and say hi," he said. She was "just a real beautiful" person.

Brunk was the lead female singer in Rivera's band, Remedy, a classic and country rock band that performed two or three times a month, and she was a member of the female trio Songbirds, which covered everything from The Andrews Sisters and ABBA to Sarah McLachlan and Linda Ronstadt, Rivera said.

The Songbirds have performed at the Oakdale Chocolate Festival, Oakdale Concerts and other functions, according to the band's MySpace page.

Heidi and Jim Brunk owned Brunk Industries, an insulation contracting business. She was an active volunteer. For instance, Rivera said, for the past three years she helped him organize the Lions Club's Christmas shopping tour, in which club members take needy children shopping for clothes and other essentials.

"She was really a godsend," Rivera said. "She even got her husband to fill in as Santa at the last minute one year. She had a big heart."

Jim Brunk said as he pulled up to his home Tuesday evening there were more than a dozen children in his garage painting flower pots that will be used at his wife's memorial Friday.

"That was the kind of love that was given to Heidi," he said.

Bee staff writer Kevin Valine can be reached at kvaline@modbee.com or 578-2316.