Update on Bekah!

Hello All,

It's been a very long time since I've had to opportunity to get on here and update everyone! I'm sure anyone who is reading this is aware of my sister and her car accident. I thought that it would be good to put on here the "whole" story of this experience.

Friday, November 4th, Bekah was headed to school just like every other morning. Anyone who knows where my parents live, know the crazy, winding roads can always be dangerous, but on this particular morning the roads were slick from the rain the night before. Bekah's car hit a slippery patch of wet leaves and her car started "fish-tailing" on her. She was in a curve, and knew that she was going to ram into a tree, so she thought that she needed to turn her car so that it hit on the passenger's side rather than her side. We are not really sure off any of the details after this point, as Bekah was knocked unconcious. However, when she woke up, her car had flipped and turned on its side.

When Bekah awoke, she was by herself. Luckily, she had stuffed her cell phone in her back pocket before leaving home, and she was able to retrieve it. She called dad, but was scared and couldn't remember where she had wrecked at. Of course, this was possibly the worst phone call that dad could have ever gotten. About that time, an angel, named Colby came upon Bekah and turned out that he knew Bekah because they went to school together. He grabbed the phone from Bekah and told dad where they were located. Bekah begged Colby to get her out of the car, and he called the police and they told him to leave her where she was until paramedics could get there. As dad was headed from the Loudon exit, he could see ambulances and police cars headed to the scene of the accident. When he pulled up to the scene, he could not believe what he was seeing. He described it to me as a nascar-looking wreck- car parts and glass were everywhere. Bekah's car was still on it's side, and she was still trapped inside. Bekah was wearing her seatbelt, unfortunately, that car was 17 years-old and the seat belts did not lock up when she hit the brakes and the air bags did not deploy. When responders arrived, Bekah's head was near the area that used to be a passenger's side air bag- one leg was wrapped up behind her and one was over near the driver's side head rest. They had to cut out the wind shield to retrieve Bekah from the car.

They loaded her into the ambulance, and headed towards Park West.

Now, I was no where to be found. I was far away in a copying room at North Middle School, preparing for the day. My family was unable to get in touch with me. Chris finally tracked me down on the school phone and told me what had happened. All he said was "Rachel, I'm on my way to pick you up. Don't freak out, but Bekah has been in a bad car accident. She flipped her car and she is on her way to the hospital now." I didn't know any other details, I didn't know if she was alert, breathing, etc. It was the worst feeling in the world. About that time, my uncle Bubba called me and said that he was pulling into the middle school and he would take me to the hospital.

When we got to Park West Hospital, Bekah was still laying on the backboard in the ER. They had a neck brace on her and her poor hair was full of dirt and pieces of glass. She tried so hard to stay calm for me, mom, and dad. She knew how worried we were, and she tried her best to be strong. After being there for an hour, we all noticed that Bekah could not feel or move anything from her waist down. The ER staff rushed her to a CT scanner, and quickly realized that Bekah had broken her back in multiple places. They immediately transported her to UT medical center for a neuro-trauma team to take over. After only being at UT for 30 minutes, we met with surgeon Dr. Abel, and he wanted to take Bekah back for surgery immediately. She had fractured 5 disks in her T-Spine, and completely shattered another one, she had also fractured one disk in her C-Spine- as well as dislocated her spine completely. Bekah asked one question before surgery, "Will I ever be able to walk again?" His response was "Without this surgery no, and even with the surgery we will have to just wait and see." She looked right at him and said "I will walk again, I don't care what you say."

The surgery took about 4 hours, and Dr. Abel came to get us for consultation. He told us that the procedure went great, but we were in no way out of the woods yet. He told us that she had regained some feeling and movement in her feet and legs, but he won't know about her ability to walk until she actually tries to stand and move on her feet, however the outlook looked good. Bekah was sent to the SCC (surgery critical care unit)- and within an hour of her surgery was sending a nurse to the waiting area to retrieve her cell phone! Through the next few days she was able to move and feel just about everything in her legs and feet. The nurses and doctors were blown away at her performance. By day 4, she wanted to try to stand and take a few steps. She did this without a hitch! The nurses said that it is unheard of that a patient with Bekah's injuries would be able to walk just 4 days after suffering an injury that would leave most people a parapalegic. Each day, Bekah was able to do a little bit more than the day before!

One week after surgery, someone from the University of Tennessee came to see Bekah because they wanted to do a story on her. Someone had went to them and told them about Bekah's story and they want to spread the glorious news about this 17 year-old girl that has done the impossible. So, this morning channel 6 WATE news came to the hospital to interview Bekah and her story airs tomorrow night at 11 p.m. They want to do an ongoing story on her to cover her recovery progress. Bekah is happy to do it, she wants to spread the word to teenagers that driving can be especially dangerous, and everyone should be very careful.

Today, Bekah was transferred to Patricia Neil Rehab Center and it looks like she will be there for about 1 month. She is supposed to get out two days before my college graduation- yay!! The doctors say that she may be able to return to school as soon as next semester! No one would have ever thought this a week and a half ago. The support that Bekah has had from her friends and family has been mind-blowing! She has such a great group of friends that care for her deeply, and have been at the hospital day in and day out.

We are so very thankful to have our Bekah Shay in our lives today- we had bracelets made that say "We Back Bekah"- and we have plenty for all her friends and family to wear to show their support and raise awareness of defensive driving. When Bekah has had time to look at pictures of her car and become comfortable seeing them- I will post the pictures to show everyone how truly blessed we are to have Bekah in our lives. Anyone that sees them can understand that she had an angel in the car with her that day.

I will try my best to keep everyone updated on Bekah's progress in healing. Please tune in to see her story tomorrow night! Thanks!