By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Kayla Brown may finally be back home, but the fight ahead of her is just beginning.
Brown, 12, was the passenger in the car crash that took the life of Samantha Russell on New Year’s Eve. Brown suffered severe injuries and spent about a month in the hospital.
Now a fundraiser will be held on her behalf Sunday, March 8, at Marino’s Country Aire, New Munster, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
There will be food, raffles and a DJ at the event, with proceeds going to the family to help with the mounting bills from the medical treatment. Both parents have been at Kayla’s side nearly around the clock, so even covering living expenses is difficult.
The crash on Dec. 31 pinned Russell underneath her pickup truck, and she later died. Brown was ejected from the vehicle in the crash, and suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as skull fractures and major facial lacerations.
She was flown by Flight for Life to Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, and ended up at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.
As the release about the fundraiser explained, Brown needed to have a special monitor inserted into her brain to monitor swelling, and faced numerous surgeries – with more ahead of her.
Brown’s family has been keeping both a Gofundme.com page (titled KaylasFight) and a Caring Bridge page at www.CaringBridge.com/visit/kaylabrown3.
The family updated that site Jan. 31, saying Brown had returned home the Wednesday before.
“Being home is of course busy, busy, but her contagious laughter and personality is coming back more and more each day. Taking things slow and little by little…,” Bobby Brown, her father, wrote in a post on the website.
Brown’s journey has been well documented on the Caring Bridge site. She spent several days sedated and on a ventilator and, according to the press release, she actually went into respiratory failure at one point.
As much as the difficult parts of the journey are on display, so are the triumphs – like the removal of the breathing tube on Jan. 9.
“Today was another victory for her and what an important one it is,” her father wrote.
But Kayla also took time to post, touching on small details of hospital life. Her parents posted pictures of her visiting with a therapy dog.
“Thank you everyone for loving me,” she wrote.
And she also got a special gift – an autographed Tony Romo photo.
“What else could light up a little girl going through the toughest time of her life than a signed picture from her favorite football player,” her father wrote.
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