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By Donald H. Harrison
 SAN DIEGO—Groups of eight to twelve couples, with at least one including a Cohen and a Levy, may sound to Jewish ears like chavurot, or friendship groups. And that’s what a segment of the secular Entrepreneurs Organization is proving to be—and possibly even more.
“We are a family,” asserts David Steel, especially in the aftermath of a horrible accident at his home May 31 that left Christina Cohen, one of the group’s members, paralyzed from the waist down.
Steel said that
Cohen, a Candelas Restaurant bartender studying to be a nurse, was admiring the sea below the bluffs of Neptune Avenue in Encinitas when a portion of the cliff on which she was standing gave way.
Cohen's boyfriend, Scott Bertone, said he had turned to go inside his friend Steel’s rented home, when he heard the sound and saw her plummeting down the 70 foot cliff.
He said he hoped that something would slow or stop her fall on the way down the cliff, but nothing did, and the thudding sound of her body crumpling as it hit the beach below recurs in his nightmares. A phone call to 9-1-1; friends running down to the beach to comfort the miraculously still-alive Cohen until the Life Flight helicopter arrived; doctors saying that she had been paralyzed by an injury to her spine; and her spending two weeks, much of them unconscious in the hospital—all these memories also crowd Bertone’s sleep.
  Steel (left) and Wayne Levy (right), who are Bertone’s fellow entrepreneurs, expressed their admiration in interviews for how Bertone, 38, gave his life over completely to Cohen’s recovery. He took a two-month leave of absence and spent every day with her during the time she was at the hospital, then at the rehabilitation center, and in the interim moved their home from a three-story town house in the Point Loma area to a one-story apartment in Little Italy, so that Cohen could be wheeled in and out rather than have to be carried up and down stairs.
Meanwhile, members of their group known as the Rock Forum of the Entrepreneurs Organization took shifts “serving as go-fers” at the hospital, running any errand that Cohen and Bertone might need, and also making certain that Bertone got some rest from his vigil.
Furthermore, they became mentors to Bertone’s employees in his absence from his business, helping them to deal with matters to which Bertone at the hospital had no time to attend.
Now, as Cohen is facing a second operation on her spine—to remove a chip that Bertone reports was inadvertently left during the first procedure – the Entrepreneurs Organization has been organizing a fundraiser to help the couple defray medical bills that are skyrocketing in the absence of their having medical insurance. They receive some assistance through Medi-Cal. Isn't there homeowner’s insurance, I asked Steele. He responded that matter is still pending with the owner of the property.
The Entrepreneurs Organization has been collecting items for auction from a variety of manufacturers, service businesses and friends, and plans to put them all on the block at 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., Wednesday, October 14, at the Confidential Restaurant and Loft at 901 Fourth Avenue in downtown San Diego.
Steel predicts thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars will be raised to help Cohen, with such items offered as a party on an executive yacht, four hours use of a Rolls Royce Phantom, high fashion shoes. Information about Confidential may be found on the club’s website, http://confidentialsd.com
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 Cohen’s spirits through this ordeal has been the talk of the group. “She really believes and has hope—a positive attitude—that one days she will 1) walk and 2) do something amazing with her life,” said Levy. “She believes that this is not the end for her but rather that she has been given an opportunity to focus on what is good in life.”
Said Steel: “I think Christina will walk again and make an impact on the world ... Some good has come out of this – we have had people donating a lot of goods. It was not hard; people just say ‘Yeah, what do you want?’ and give freely.”
Bertone is pictured above with Cohen. He said this about the woman he loves: “I think her spirit, who she is, resonates through this injury. She has always been the kind of person who tries to make other people comfortable. “
In social situations, he said, Cohen—the daughter of a marriage between a Jewish father and a Christian mother—“gravitates to people who aren’t comfortable and makes them feel comfortable.”
At Kaplan College, where she was studying nursing, “one guy had a drug and alcohol problem, and she helped him stick in the program, giving him rides to work,” Bertone said. “When she got injured, he dropped out and had a relapse.”
When people visit her recuperating at their apartment, “she worries about how other people are doing,” “Bertone said. “Her spirit is so strong, it is not about her and her injury, not about how she is doing, but how she can help make other people feel better.”
At one point, Cohen’s older sister was having problems with an ex-huband, but tried to put on her best face while visiting. “Christina could tell that something was wrong, and blocked out her pain, and consoled her sister,” Bertone said.
A former homecoming queen at her high school in Grant’s Pass, Oregon, “she was always popular because of her spirit,” said Bertone. “No matter what life has thrown at her, she will make the best of it. She hopes that once she gets past the traumatic part of it, she can help other people.”
After a moment, he added, “I don’t want to sugar coat anything –these are hard, hard times, with lot of sorrow, but in general her spirit is that 'I am going to get through this and I will make good things happen.'”
If anything lifts the feeling of burden on Bertone, Cohen, Levy and Steel, it is the closeness, the true friendships, that they have experienced since becoming members of the Entrepreneurs Organization.
All of them were drawn to the organization because they operate their own businesses. Levy, previously in the lending business, now buys, rehabilitates and sells residential properties; Steel has an online environmental lighting business and a share in MoJoPages, an online directory service. Bertone has a loan modification business.
The groups or forums of the Entrepreneurs Organization discuss issues that commonly face business owners—raising capital, dealing with personnel, transportation issues. But sometimes they also discuss problems with their personal lives and with their families.
Cohen's accident not only has given the group much to talk about; it has motivated and involved them in helping to get her better.
“God works in mysterious ways,” quotes Bertone. “We are being tested in our lives. Whatever is going to happen, I think it will be something very, very good. Christina has a deep faith. She believes deeply and we pray together every night.”
More about Christina, and how you can help her out, is on the Facebook page, Prayers for Christina.
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