Local woman remembered for positivity, courage and saving her brothers’ lives
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HIBBARD — A local woman is not only being remembered for her positive attitude despite health challenges, but also as a hero.
Gina Munns, 44, died Friday morning. The Hibbard woman was the oldest of four siblings and was born with an advanced form of spastic cerebral palsy. This condition affected her ability to move her muscles and confined her to a wheelchair her entire life. Doctors said she wouldn’t live past eight years old.
She was an outgoing athlete in the Special Olympics, participated in her church youth group and was promised to a man named John Quayle, who also has special needs.
“Growing up, I don’t think I ever saw her without a smile on her face,” her brother Deven Munns told EastIdahoNews.com. “She was always happy. Happy to be here, happy to be alive and happy to have friends. She made other people happy.”
Gina couldn’t stand, sit up on her own, bend her legs or right elbow, or open her right hand. She continuously did therapy on her left hand so it could move and be used to control her wheelchair. On a hot summer day in Hamer back in 1988, her ability to move her one functioning limb helped save two of her younger brothers’ lives.
Deven was three years old and her other brother, Chance, was four. The family didn’t have air conditioning and the doors inside their house were open to help the inside cool off. Gina, who was 10, was sitting in the garage and motioned to her brothers she wanted something cold to eat by putting her hand to her mouth and licking it like an ice-cream.
“(We had) one of those lay flat freezers with the door latch piece on it. One of those old giant freezers that was 3/4 of the way full with meat and ice-cream and all sorts of stuff,” Deven recalls. “One of us jumped in and couldn’t find it so the other one jumped in to try and help find it. Something happened, not sure what, but we both went down at the same time and the door came down.”
It was dark, cold and the two brothers were stranded in the freezer wearing shorts, tank tops and no shoes. Realizing she couldn’t get the lid open herself, Gina made her way into the house as quickly as she could to try and get her mom’s attention.
“My mom was doing the dishes or something and … thinking she wanted an ice cream was like, ‘Ok. Give me a minute.’ She couldn’t express, ‘My brothers are locked in the freezer,'” Deven said. “(Gina) raced out the door and a minute or two went by and she came back in. She kept on pointing … and did the motion for licking an ice cream. … She would not let my mom go.”
Gina’s mother, Rhonda, eventually went to the garage to get Gina what she thought she wanted – an ice cream. When Rhonda opened the lid, she saw her two boys, both blue and curled up against each other for warmth.
“It was close. If we would’ve been left out there for a few more minutes, a half hour or so, it would have been over,” Deven said. “I owe her (Gina) my life. … I have four kids. My brother Chance has three kids. We’re happily married with seven (total) kids that all wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for her saving our lives.”
Along with saving her brothers, Gina spent her life helping countless others in various ways. Her family has heard story after story of people who were “down on their luck” and once they saw a smiling Gina, their attitude and perspective changed.
“She wasn’t whining and griping about her life when she lived a much harder life than they did,” Deven explained. “Today, she is no doubt walking, dancing, running and brushing her own hair, being no longer restrained by the disorder that tried to define her.”
Funeral arrangements for Gina are pending.
