Brown: Turkey toss victim, assailant turning lives around

Five years ago, Victoria Ruvolo was almost killed by a frozen 20-pound turkey tossed from a moving car as a prank by a teenager. She says she would go through it all again. Take the pain. The coma. Months of agonizing rehabilitation. Surgery that rebuilt her crushed, damaged face.

And the wildly publicized court hearing, where she hugged her 17-year-old assailant, Ryan Cushing. She told me that she also whispered into Ryan's ear:

"Just do something good with your life."

At that moment, Ryan was reborn. He would have faced up to 25 years in prison, but Vicky - it's hard to tag the lively, affable woman with any other name - asked for mercy for Ryan. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree assault and got six months in jail and community service.

"I felt like I had someone's life in my hands," said Vicky. "I had been through what I had to go through. I didn't want to see a life rot away in jail. I didn't see how that would help me move up and move forward."

Vicky was reborn that day, too. She wasn't a victim anymore. She forgave Ryan, she said, so that she could heal. "I didn't want to have anybody else control my life. I put myself back in charge."

A new life

Now 49, Vicky also has dedicated herself to a new quest - keeping other kids from making mistakes like the one she called Ryan's "stupid, ridiculous thing."

Twice a month, she does the improbable. She sits in a dark room and runs a slide show of her life. She watches as her damaged face is projected on a large screen. And she listens as Robert Goldman, a lawyer and psychologist who works for the county Department of Probation, talks to kids in the Suffolk County probation department's TASTE program - Thinking errors; Anger management; Social skills; Talking, Empathy - which he founded.

The program is for kids who have made mistakes. Often, their siblings and parents are in the room. Goldman points to the image of Vicky's swollen, wrecked face. He tells about her decision to forgive Ryan.

"What was she thinking?" he asks. "Well, we don't need to speculate about what she was thinking, because she's right here."

That's Vicky's cue to stand.

Stepping to the lectern, she begins by telling that it was snowing that night, in November 2004. Because she doesn't like to drive in snow, she drove oh so slowly and carefully. She was one block from her Lake Ronkonkoma home when Ryan hurled the turkey out of a car filled with teens.

Vicky asked that Ryan, who is now 22, talk to kids in the TASTE program as a part of his community service requirement. Goldman said he did that, and continues to speak in the program even though his requirement is over.

A second chance

"I keep going back once a month on my own because I want to try to reach at least one kid a session in that room," Ryan said in a separate interview.

He said he tries to impart several lessons, as he, too, relives that night - during sessions when Vicky is not there - once a month for kids. Know who your real friends are, Ryan says. And know that family will always be there. "They were there for me and that helped me get through," he said.

But Ryan also gives a warning: Beware of boredom. "When you have nothing to do, anything can look intriguing," he tells the kids.

For now, Ryan is living in Greenlawn and works full-time while he decides what to study when he returns to college. He's considering radiology, he said, "or maybe something with kids, with talking to kids, like I do in the TASTE program."

Vicky is never far from his mind. "She did a big thing," he said. "She did what a lot of people I know wouldn't have done. She wanted to figure out the truth of what happened and I am grateful for that. I owe her a lot."

Where they go from here

Lawyers do not want Vicky and Ryan to talk directly until a civil suit she filed is resolved. But Goldman talks to Ryan. "He has helped a lot of kids turn their lives around," Goldman said.

Vicky said she's glad to hear that. "I got a lot of requests to recreate that hug with Ryan," she said. "I turned them all down because I had to heal and Ryan had to do his sentence. We both had to do work, not be on TV."

Vicky stressed that her decision to forgive Ryan was not made blindly, or passively. She said she had watched her parents lose two children - and pull themselves back from grief. "They taught me that nothing can keep you from moving up and moving on if you work at it," she said.

There is much more to their story. And lessons about living that reach far beyond the pair. Which is why Vicky, Ryan and Goldman are co-authoring a book.

"It's important because I see what the two of them have accomplished," Goldman said. "It's a restorative justice, something that doesn't happen often enough. Vicky's decision freed the victim from being a victim, and let the offender redirect himself to something higher."

Vicky believes that her experience is important, too. She would like to see the county's TASTE program expanded to schools.

"Revenge is not the answer," she said. "I feel as though I went through this to help kids and to get that message out there. It's so important and it's a very important part of my life now."