PORTSMOUTH — Denise Betz was back on stage this weekend, performing in the Portsmouth Community Theater’s production of “The Ugly Duckling.”

She needed a ride to the theater, performed the role of Aunt Malkin from her wheelchair, and couldn’t rise during the curtain call, but this was a milestone all the same. She had come far in the three months since she lay broken at the bottom of a Portsmouth ditch, wondering if somebody would hear her cries before it was too late.

The irony is that Ms. Betz was off to Tiverton on the afternoon of July 17 pick up a new helmet and crash bars to go with the metallic blue 2009 Kawasaki 900 Vulcan she had purchased just two weeks earlier. The bike, a big step up from the 1983 Honda 750 she had ridden for years, was powerful and heavy but easy to control. Still, the 56-year-old said she is obsessive when it comes to safety — her present helmet was two years old and should be replaced. As usual, she had put on full leather protective clothing for the short trip.

She was on the ramp from Portsmouth’s West Main Road onto Route 24 — where one lane heads left toward Bristol, the other right toward Tiverton. Traffic was busy and she was aware of cars close behind.

As she drove up to the highway, “A car went around me and I felt a little push, it had touched the back end of my bike, not enough to do any damage but just enough to shift the position of the bike” and aim her toward the railing. She tried to wrench the bike back but couldn’t.

“I knew that I was going to crash.”

Rather than slam the guardrail, fall off and perhaps get run over, “I pushed off from my bike and launched myself over the rail — I thought grass would be better to land on than pavement.”

She hit hard, “hard enough that I heard my ribs break. I spun around and went down a long way,” finally landing in a thicket of “heavy duty prickers that actually helped break my fall. I was wedged and couldn’t move.”

That was partly due to the prickers but more a result of injuries that she couldn’t yet feel but knew were bad. Doctors would later find 11 fractured ribs, two breaks in an ankle, a compound fracture of her right leg and compression fracture in her back.

Still alert, she managed to pull her cell phone from an outside pocket. The front screen was smashed but it worked. She dialed 911, reached the Portsmouth dispatcher and tried to describe her whereabouts. She said she could hear a siren nearby — probably headed to some other emergency. The dispatcher sounded puzzled — nobody had reported any motorcycle accident.

Soon she heard sirens heading her way, then sounds from above. Oddly, nobody had peered down to look.

“What I didn’t realize was that my bike wasn’t there,” she said.

When Ms Betz had propelled herself over the fence, the bike somehow had snagged the railing and kept going, “250-plus feet down the road still hooked to the railing. When it finally stopped it looked like somebody had just left it standing there, that nothing was wrong.” She would later learn that a couple of curious bikers had stopped to see if anything was amiss, but seeing nobody around, had kept on going.

“I kept calling ‘Hello’ as loudly as I could which wasn’t very loud because my ribs were affecting my breathing.

For awhile, nobody answered, but then I heard someone yell, “I hear you. Then everyone came running.”

As they cut off her clothes, rescuers could see that the injuries were severe — leg bones had broken through her skin — but kept their concerns to themselves.

“They talked to me, asked me questions to keep me alert ... I was holding my cell phone in a vice grip and one of them asked, ‘Would you give the nice policeman your cell phone?’ We started laughing.”

She recalls the efforts of the police and firefighters as heroic. “They had to have been getting cut up by the prickers, just getting me freed was terribly difficult but they could not have been more careful.” Getting her up the steep incline was even more difficult — she vaguely remembers lots of ropes rigged to the board onto which she had been secured. “I was starting to feel the pain but they were so gentle.”

When she finally reached road level she saw that the highway had been closed. Rescuers, worried about damage those broken ribs might be doing to internal organs, had called in a Life Flight helicopter.

“I always wanted to ride in a helicopter, just not like this,” she said.

The next two months at Rhode Island Hospital and then a nursing home are a blur of operations, therapy and more operations. Rods and screws were inserted into broken bones and she was fitted with a body cast — “I looked like Xena the Warrior.”

Postal route awaits

Ms. Betz is back home on Donna Drive, itching to get back to her job of 19 years as a mail carrier with the Bristol Post Office on a route through the east side of Metacom Avenue from the area near Toyota Village north to Fatima Drive.

“I really miss it, seeing the people I work with and along my route.” Doctors still insist that she put no weight on her right leg so she won’t be delivering letters for awhile.

She’s had abundant time to reflect and to count blessings. These include the helmet — “I can’t imagine anyone getting on a motorcycle without one. I would be dead if I hadn’t worn it;” her cell phone — “It’s broken but I still have it;” family — husband Peter and two daughters ,“and more friends than I ever imagined I had.”

Those friends and family have conspired to give her a few special outings.

On Sept. 27 she was lured over to Bristol, allegedly for small cookout at the home of friend Lori Sardinha. They needed to stop for just a moment at the Cup Defenders, she was told.

She wondered why her brother was there — “and then I saw lots of people and a sign, “Denise Betz Benefit,” and burst into tears. “This is for me? You did this all for me?”

Over 300 people had turned out— friends, family, fellow postal employees and people from her route — to raise money to help her pay staggering bills at a time when accumulated leave time has been exhausted.

“The money is a huge help, more than they can know,” Ms. Betz said. “And knowing that there are people out there who love you means so much.”

And recently, Cindy Killavey of the Portsmouth Community Theater, of which Ms. Betz is a member, stopped by to see if she was up to getting back on stage.

“‘How could I possibly,’ I asked. ‘I can’t even walk yet.’ She told me she was sure something could be worked out and ever since she has been driving me to and from the rehearsals. It’s been so great to get out with people again.”

Biking days are over

Ms. Betz has reached another conclusion.

“My motorcycle days are over.”

Her new Kawasaki remains at the police station while insurance issues are straightened out — the insurance company has balked at paying because of the lack of visible damage indicating that the bike was ever nudged in the back end.

But when she gets it back, it will be sold.

“Having seen what this has done to people who care about me, I could never put them through it again.

“I think it’s time to try something new,” kayaking for instance. “It sounds like fun, something my husband (not a motorcycle rider) and I could try. “I’ll miss the motorcycle but those days are over.”