Florida teen survived traumatic injuries after being involved in a car accident to walk at her high school graduation according to Good Morning America.Khalia Carter said everything was regular on April 18 when she was spending the day with her best friend playing golf and got matching tattoos. Then on her way home a life chaining event took place.
“I felt a big crash and my car was spinning and I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t control the wheel. I couldn’t press the gas or the brake. Nothing was working. After that, I got out the car and I just started screaming once it stopped,” Khalia told news outlet.
Her mother Shawnda Cook, says she got a call from a stranger who was at the scene, urging her to get there as soon as possible. Khalia was about five minutes away from home, but due to emergency responders heading to the scene, it took Cook approx. 30 minutes before she was actually able to get there and lay eyes on her daughter. Khalia was rear-ended by a drunk driver on a motorcycle whose blood alcohol levels were three times the legal limit.
Khalia’s car was sent down the road at about 90 miles an hour before she crashed into a ditch. The teen was rushed to the hospital and suffered a traumatic brain injury, a mobility disorder, speech impairment, and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the accident.
“Some days [are] very hard and some days, I just get emotional and I’m not even an emotional person. This journey has been a lot and dealing with a brain injury is probably one of the worst things you can go through [because] your brain is really sensitive,” Khalia said.
Despite everything she went through after the accident, her goal was to walk the stage at her graduation.
“I was determined. Nobody was going to stop me from doing that. I knew, as soon as it happened, I told my mom in the hospital that I’m still going to go to graduation. After I was getting stronger every day, I decided, maybe it’d be surprising if I shocked everybody and walked across the stage and why not? So I pushed every day as hard as I can and gave 110% every day at therapy, to try to be able to walk across the stage,” Khalia said.
The teen went from not being able to walk, to being in a wheelchair, then a walker, to about four weeks after the incident walking the stage with the Fort Myers High School Class of 2022.
“This was such a huge milestone. Khalia had so many odds against her. It’s hard [for her] to be in a big crowded environment and so for her to take the initiative to go and be around such a large crowd was huge for her. So to see her take the initiative to do it and walk across that stage by herself? It was amazing,” Cook said.
As of now, the teen is still in therapy and plans to keep progressing, hoping to get well enough to still attend Georgia Southern University in the fall. She plans to pursue a degree in either journalism or education.
Link to original The Black Detour