Photography courtesy of ranken jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital
Life can truly turn on a dime.
March 16, 2013: With her mom, Renee, at the wheel and her dad, Nathan, in the front passenger seat, 3-year-old Natalie was strapped into her car seat in the back. They’d just left the library when a driver, allegedly under the influence of alcohol and sleeping pills, slammed into their car head-on. The driver behind them plowed into the car from the rear.
Natalie suffered a traumatic brain injury. When a nearby nurse reached her, she wasn’t breathing. After she was revived with CPR, the toddler was airlifted to a St. Louis medical center, where she was put in an induced coma. Renee was hospitalized with a shattered arm, a fractured pelvic bone, an injured knee, and a broken bone in her neck. Nathan had a broken foot and hip. Both were unable to visit Natalie.
When they did, the prognosis was devastating. “They said she would never see again, she would never talk again, she would never walk again—or if she did walk, she would be very limited,” Renee says.
Two weeks later, Natalie checked into Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital. She was still in a “marked coma”—a designation on the Rappaport Coma/Near Coma Scale that corresponded to an inability to focus her eyes or consistently respond to stimuli. Gradually, though, Natalie emerged from her coma. Once awake, she rapidly progressed in her ability to stand, walk, speak, and eat. She went home two months later. “At the time of her discharge, she was still very ataxic [or unsteady], and her speech was apraxic [with limited ability to speak clearly or use multisyllabic words], but she was very active and fully engaged with family and other caregivers,” says Ranken Jordan chief medical officer Dr. Nick Holekamp. “She continued regular, frequent outpatient therapy and continued to improve in all areas.”
Today, Natalie scurries around her living room, plays tea at a child-size table, shows visitors her hamster Stuffy, asks her mother to play “Barbies and babies,” and somersaults across the couch and floor. With her leg braces on, she walks stiff-legged; without them, there’s considerably more wobble to her step. Her sight is now fine, says Renee: “She can see an ant on the ground.”
The vivacious Natalie chatters incessantly—some words are distinct, others a tad tougher to translate. She spends four hours a day, four days a week getting speech and physical therapy at a United Services for Children early-childhood center.
Renee calls her daughter “a miracle,” but in the same breath admits she isn’t surprised.
“Even before the accident, she was always very independent,” she says. “Her determination is what has gotten her as far as she has gotten.”
