In the blink of an eye, Alyssa Kahle’s world was turned upside down. A stay-at-home mom from Minden, Nebraska, Alyssa’s life was once filled with the daily rhythms of raising her four children – driving them to practice, attending dance recitals and Boy Scout meetings and keeping her family on track.
But everything changed on August 15, when a routine drive ended with a series of collisions, a fire and life-threatening injuries for Alyssa.
“A drunk driver hit a pickup and the pickup hit me,” Alyssa said. “The pickup rolled over the railroad tracks and started on fire. When they found me, I was hanging outside my window by my hips. That’s why I have burns on my back, shoulders, arms and part of my face.”
Alyssa sustained multiple fractures, a traumatic brain injury and burns covering 35 percent of her body. After being stabilized at Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney, Alyssa flew to the University of Kansas Medical Center for advanced burn and wound care.
“The first three days were touch and go,” Alyssa said. They were just hoping I would survive.”
Over the next several weeks, Alyssa had multiple surgeries to repair fractures and received skin grafts on her arms and back. Then she came to Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals’ specialized burn and brain injury programs to begin intensive rehabilitation.
She arrived unable to sit up without dizziness, with limited use of her arms and legs and experiencing double vision. Her physician-led care team guided her through a structured program focused on burn care, vision therapy and gait training.
“She had significant fractures on the left side of her body in conjunction with her burns,” Emily Adams, OTR/L, CBIS, a Madonna occupational therapist, said. “We had a strict regimen for stretching and range of motion.”
At Madonna’s Specialty Hospital, advanced technology such as the AreTech ZeroG Gait and Balance System helped Alyssa safely trust her legs again.
“I had a lot of pain in my knee from having that femur fix, but the ZeroG was awesome,” Alyssa said. “I only had to take about 20 or 30 pounds and was pretty much walking by myself; it was just holding me up a little straighter.”
Daily therapy also included burn care training, teaching Alyssa and her family to manage dressings, scar care and skin graft recovery.
“We want to assess their skin every day,” Adams said. “We try to help them to learn what looks good and what doesn’t look good.”
When Alyssa transitioned to Madonna’s Rehabilitation Hospital, vision therapy became a crucial part of her recovery.
“We worked on binocularity, which is a higher-level word for both of our eyes working together, so working on convergence and divergence,” Adams said. “She was able to go home without having any double vision, but that was a big thing that plays into the whole role of recovery here.”
Alyssa credits the environment at Madonna for helping her regain confidence and independence.
“Everybody always has a smile,” Alyssa said. “They made me feel like I’m at home.”
Her determination and positivity were central themes throughout her recovery.
“From day one, Alyssa had a bubbly personality,” Adams said. “She’s a hard worker and very motivated. She wanted to do everything she could to get home to her kids.”
And step by step, Alyssa regained independence.
“The cane was a huge difference,” she said. “It was just natural.”
She can now climb stairs, walking without a cane at times and hug her children with both hands, feeling like herself again – all things her family prayed for.
“I’m me,” she said. “And that’s a blessing.”