January - March, 2003

Cover story

Amanda's amazing recovery

Sixteen-year-old Amanda Flores is like most girls her age. The Springfield Public Schools junior enjoys singing, dancing and hanging out with her friends. But one evening last summer changed her life forever. What she had anticipated as a night of fun and camping turned into a night of tragedy that would leave her and her family wondering if she would ever sing or dance again.
Amanda says she and a friend were on their way to pick up some friends and head to the campsite.
“We started racing a motorcycle down St. Louis Street. My friend was driving about 70 or 80 miles per hour and she lost control of the car going around a curve. We spun counterclockwise and slammed into a cement pillar and the passenger side of the car was kicked in 2 1/2 feet, compacting my seat. We spun again and hit a pontoon boat; ricocheted off of it and hit another pontoon boat, knocking it 17 feet off of its trailer.”
Amanda says she doesn’t remember anything about that night.
“I look at the pictures of the car after the jaws of life ripped the top off and I can’t imagine being in there,” she says.
While Amanda was being pulled from the car and rushed to St. John’s Emergency Trauma Center, her mother, Sonya Yount, received a phone call all mothers hope they never receive.
“It was about 11 o’clock Friday night and I was in bed when I heard the answering machine pick up and a St. John’s ER nurse’s voice came on telling me they had Amanda. I scrambled to the phone and heard words that I never thought I would hear. ‘We have your daughter, Amanda here and she was involved in an accident.’ Panic-stricken I immediately asked if she was hurt and the nurse said yes.”
Sonya says when she got to the emergency room, Amanda was taken into surgery for internal bleeding and didn’t come out until 4 a.m. From there Amanda was taken to St. John’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit where anesthesiologist and pediatric critical care specialist Brad Bowenschulte, M.D., cared for her.
“At the time Amanda was brought in she was on 100 percent oxygen and required ventilator support. She had a crushed pelvis; a dislocated shoulder and her lungs had major contusions or bruises. She pretty much continued to get worse from there,” Bowenschulte says.
Bowenschulte says a whole team of St. John’s nurses and staff worked around the clock to keep Amanda alive.
“We tried her on various types of ventilators and basically for about eight hours the only thing that worked was me sitting there squeezing the bag intermittently, pumping oxygen directly into her body. We had her mother in multiple times to keep her abreast of what was going on. I remember talking with her and telling her that we were running out of tricks, and I’ll never forget she looked at me and said, ‘you’re not giving up are you?’ I said NO! We’re not ready to give up yet.”
That afternoon Amanda’s mother and family went into Amanda’s room to pray with a St. John’s chaplain.
“I turned her over to God at that point,” Sonya says. “She was his child and if he had to take her I was going to have to let go.”
Bowenschulte says about a half an hour after that is when he started to see some steady improvements.
“That was the day I almost died,” Amanda says. “But, I’m alive! It is a miracle.”
Amanda spent six weeks in St. John’s PICU, one week in rehabilitation and had one week of home health care. Amanda is currently going to physical therapy three times a week at St. John’s Midwest Sports Medicine Center to regain strength in her arm and legs. While she is walking on her own, she says she will undergo another surgery to reconstruct her pelvis when she is 18.
Bowenschulte says St. John’s PICU sees trauma patients more often than it would like, but Amanda’s case reminds the staff how precious life is.
“Seeing Amanda now makes it worthwhile. This is something that we often take for granted because we do these things a lot and you can start to expect only good things to happen. But, when you come across a case like this when you were afraid you were going to lose and you see everybody pull together as a team and then see the end result; it is very rewarding,” he says.
As for Amanda and her family they are just thankful she is alive.
“I wouldn’t have wanted Amanda to go to any other hospital. St. John’s PICU is absolutely fantastic. They saved her life. Every single one of the people who work there are special,” her mom says.