Abby McClure was just 15 when her older sister, Megan, was in a car accident. At the time, Abby was a freshman in high school. She says her focus was mainly on learning the ropes, making new friends and doing her homework—until she nearly lost her sister.
“Megan was driving home for Christmas break from [the] University of Nebraska-Kearney (UNK) on December 17, 2008, when she lost control and hit a semi head-on,” Abby remembers. “She suffered a traumatic brain injury, broken jaw, broken C7 process, bilateral lung collapse, and a handful of broken ribs. She was my big sister, so it was weird to see her going through everything.”
After being in the ICU for 11 days, Megan came to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals’ Lincoln Campus. Abby would come after school to be with her sister and wait for her parents to arrive at the hospital. She knew she wanted to be in the medical field in some capacity, but seeing her sister participate in hours of intense daily therapy and the progress she made, reaffirmed her decision.
“During that time, I would do my homework, and then watch Megan do therapy,” Abby said. “It was pretty cool to see and made me really like the occupational therapy side of things! I watched her work through her vision issues, difficulty with her cognition, and trying to get back to school and subsequent graduate school.”
Abby saw firsthand the impact that Madonna’s brain injury specialists had on her sister’s recovery. Megan spent three weeks participating in inpatient therapy, then six months on an outpatient basis, working hard to return to her college classes.
“All the therapists who I worked with were really good, and focused on me and my goals,” Megan said. “They wrote treatment plans based on what I wanted to return to—college and running.”
Megan’s customized care plan included work on Madonna’s driving simulator, sprints through the hallways and cooking up breakfast in the kitchen. She also specifically remembers working with Nova Adams in the Therapeutic Learning Center to prepare for her college coursework. She also had a wedding to plan.
“Her boyfriend at the time, Thomas, did not leave her side after the accident,” Abby said. “They had been dating a year at the time, and he had actually wanted to propose while she was in the hospital because he realized he couldn’t live without her.”
Thomas took the next semester off of school at UNK and moved to Lincoln, living with Abby and her family while Megan did her rehabilitation. Five months after Megan’s accident, Thomas proposed, and they were married the next summer.
“He was a very integral part of her recovery,” Abby said. “He really showed why it’s so important to have a strong support system as you navigate this brain injury journey.”
Megan and Thomas now have three kids—Luke, 9, Ella, 7 and Haylee, 5. Megan repeated her junior year in college starting in August 2008, less than a year after her accident. She graduated from UNK and is now an athletic trainer for the school system in Syracuse, Nebraska. She’ll also be the matron of honor in Abby’s wedding in September.
“She continues to be very active, which helps her recovery even more,” Abby said. “She also pushes me to be more active so we got into running together.”
Abby graduated high school in 2012. She considered nursing and physical therapy, but decided her passion was occupational therapy in college. She knew she wanted to specialize in either pediatrics or brain injury. She began working for Madonna on the brain injury unit in Omaha in July 2021.
“I love working with brain injury patients because there is constant opportunity for learning and education,” Abby said. “Every patient brings their own complexity and challenges me to be a better therapist and learn how to better serve them. My favorite part of brain injury recovery is watching young patients make huge progress, move on, and come back to visit. I love getting to hear about them getting back to their lives and hobbies. It always makes me tear up!”