Healing After Surviving the Unimaginable

This is Courtney Leanne; I'm still in the hospital, hurting and honestly grateful for all of the sedation meds they keep giving me to calm me down and allow me to disassociate from the world.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION

I DIDN'T ADD SOME DETAILS FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH BUT IT IS STILL A HARD READ.

Tuesday, around 4:00pm, Blake(my son who is 5) and I were taking the back roads down Tanner behind UCF to get back home from visiting my mom at her house.

Fortunately Blake and I both had our seat belts on because no more than 15 minutes into our drive there was a silver SUV that came shooting across the two yellow lines, aiming directly for me. Video surveillance shows that he was only about half a car's length in front of us when he unexpectedly merged over, plowing headfirst directly into the the front of the drivers side of my car.

From there everything gets a little hazy, I remember instantly calling Blake's name out but he wasn't responding.

I couldn't see him in my rearview mirror so I tried to climb out but my door was smashed shut and then I tried to climb to the passenger seat.

That's when I realized that my right leg was completely shattered my kneecap had a huge laceration about an inch tall and 6 inches wide showing multiple pieces of bones, a torn tendon and nerves sticking out.

So I thought, 'I can just hold my knee.'

And then I could get back to him but I still couldn't move...

I looked down further and I couldn't find my foot.

Or the second half of my shin.

It turns out that they somehow got pushed under my driver's seat. So I pulled them out. That's when I realized that my tibia was completely cracked in half with bones sticking out from the top and bottom, pointing different directions.

I grabbed the back of my leg and I pulled it up onto the driver seat and then used my left leg to scoot myself onto the passenger seat enough to see Blake; he was unconscious, hanging out of the bottom of his carseat, being held up by his underarms and chest. He was covered in blood with a huge black lump sticking out from under his ribs at that point I was trying everything I could to wake him without moving him and I genuinely thought I lost him.

At that time a blonde woman came climbing into the car and told me that she was an off duty medic. She asked for my consent to remove Blake from the car so she could try to resuscitate him and from what I understand he was responsive before being airlifted to Arnold Palmer, and that was the last time I saw him until yesterday.

For 5 blessed minutes when my nurses from ORMC and a very kind elderly gentleman that drives the ambulance helped me get onto a stretcher and brought me over to his hospital. Then up into his room so I could hold his hand and say hi to him.

At this time it is still not clear if the man that was driving the SUV was distracted by technology or had a heart attack causing him to swerve and ruin our lives forever.

Official diagnosis, I'll start with Blake's:

He has three fractured ribs. He has damage to his neck and spine that I believe are considered fractures; the exact technicalities I'm still waiting to understand myself but I do know he is not allowed to move his head or back at all. In addition, he has a punctured spleen and fluids in his lungs; all of which are currently self-healing and by the grace of all things holy, he has not needed surgery nor is he paralyzed(Prayers Answered!) but he still loves dinosaurs.

He does remember the accident but it's too traumatic for him to speak of. He'll either start crying or tell you he's tired and he can't talk about it.

I have an appointment tomorrow to get him registered for trauma counseling.

My medical updates: I have a punctured spleen, as well, which is also healing itself. My right leg has multiple breaks; including the ankle and the knee. I had surgery today on my tibia. They put metal rods in both sides of my lower leg to re-attach my bone.

Also had surgery on my patella where I had two tendons reconnected one of was torn in half and the other was so severely damaged that part of it needed to be removed. Small bits of bone also had to be removed.

I have lacerations on the back of my skull and deep lacerations and bruising across my chest, across my stomach and across my lower abdomen at my hips from my seatbelt.

My seatbelt, which absolutely saved my life but unfortunately was what inevitably took Phoebe's little life at 22 weeks and 2 days.

The impact caused my placenta to detach blocking any blood flow or vital sources to the baby. She was oh so very broken and bruised, I delivered her stillborn September 19th 2024 at 12:11 p.m. at Winnie Palmer Hospital accompanied by her and Blake's father, Casey.

We named her Phoebe Joan West.

She was absolutely beautiful.

We're all just taking this one moment and thought process at a time.

While we learn to live without Phoebe. While we have to relearn what living even means.

I have every intention of begging Casey to use all of his vacation days and a few unpaid weeks, if possible without losing his job, to help Blake and I with our recovery journey; both emotionally and physically but I don't know how that would be possible with this economy.

So I have to do something I never do. I am always the first in line to hand out help but asking for it? Impossible. Well, a few days ago it would have seemed impossible. After surviving this type of trauma, I am humbly surrendering and asking. If you can help in any way, please consider my family. We need every hand on us.

Say a prayer for us in this moment and remember my daughter. Phoebe Joan was here and she is loved.