‘SOME X-FACTOR’: ASHLYN KRELL’S AMAZING RECOVERY.
PART FIVE IN A SERIES
There was no brain activity.
Her heart had stopped and had been restarted.
Her blood system and kidneys were failing.
Ashlyn Krell was hooked up to a respirator, the life support she needed to keep her lungs working.
In the coming hours, after being rushed to the hospital emergency room and then into intensive care from a cold-water drowning along Highway 401 outside London, Ont., Ashlyn would have to get through what Dr. Robert Arntfield called a “magnificent systemic storm.”
A traumatologist at the London Health Sciences Centre, Arntfield headed up the overnight trauma team during the 12 crucial hours after the critically ill woman was moved into their unit.
He was “one of a hundred doctors who touched this woman’s life,” he said, calling himself merely the spokesperson for all their good work.
He reviewed their notes for the interview for this story, to talk about Ashlyn’s amazing recovery over the four weeks following her car crash the night of Feb. 12, 2017.
“The heroes on the front line saved her life and we carried on the task at the hospital, both in the ER and the intensive-care area and in the days and weeks thereafter,” he said.
Ashlyn had been dead. Her heart had stopped in that cold pool of water in the hole along the 401, where she was upside down in her car — submerged — for at least 24 minutes.
The cold-water drowning came in as a unique case at a hospital with some of Canada’s best medical talent.
Ashlyn “got everything we have,” Arntfield said. “She got the collection of our sum of knowledge and their procedures, empathy, soft skills, hard skills — they all go into a case like that.”
He added: “She was as close to the brink as we get.”
The news about Ashlyn’s dire situation came to her missionary parents, Gord and Sharon Skopnik, while they were in a camp for refugees from South Sudan in neighbouring Uganda. They needed to get back to Canada.
“We had to hire a vehicle to drive us out. That was 11 hours to get to the nearest airport and then we were able to fly to Europe and then to Canada. But it was a long trip,” said Gord.
“We didn’t get updates. We just knew she was in a state that she would be losing her life and we wouldn’t be there to say goodbye.”
It took two days for them to get back. On the airplane, they leaned on each other. And they prayed.
“We were just trusting in God. … We were hanging on these promises that we could trust God until we could see what was happening.”
Back at the hospital, the ICU team was working feverishly to get Ashlyn through the shock phase.
“The way she was looking, it was becoming really concerning that we couldn’t reach that milestone,” Arntfield said.
She’d had a small seizure. Her kidneys were in trouble. There was a concern about a possible internal bleed. Her blood counts were changing. She was broken in so many places.
“Her brain has failed, her heart has failed, her lungs have failed, her kidneys have failed, her blood system has failed and there was concern her bowel had failed,” the traumatologist said.
The doctors were in “uncharted territory.” The goal was to at least keep Ashlyn alive long enough for her parents to see her.
The Skopniks raced to London as soon as their plane touched down in Toronto.
“By the time we got there, she was showing improvement,” Gord said. “Her vital signs, her organs were functioning. She was showing improvement. It was a shock to us.
“But she was not out of the woods, no.”
Ashlyn Krell opened her eyes and looked around.
It was strange. She was in bed. She knew that. But, where was she?
“I think I’m in a different place. I don’t know where this is,” she said to herself.
Her eyes caught a bright pink poster on the wall. There were photos of family and friends stuck to it.
And her name, Ashlyn, in bold, black script.
“Oh cool, that’s my name. This must be my room, I guess. I guess I’m supposed to be here for some reason,” she told herself.
She faded back out.
No one could predict in the early days following the crash who Ashlyn would be once, if ever, she came out of her coma and her body healed.
For two weeks, she would remain sedated while the medical team worked “to put the wheels back on,” Arntfield said.
Five days after the crash, they began to wean Ashlyn off sedation. Dialysis was started to flush out the buildup in her kidneys.
Six days into her recovery, she was coughing, gagging and biting on the hoses in her mouth. Those were good signs that her brain was starting to heal.
It wouldn’t be clear if she had any brain damage until she was out of her coma.
A full week after the crash, Ashlyn had a tracheotomy and the outlook was more optimistic.
She was opening her eyes and turning her head when hearing a voice in the room.
What she would see was a steady stream of family and friends who came to her bedside.
And what she would hear were songs and prayers.
There’s no question modern science and medicine set the road map for Ashlyn’s recovery, along with a stellar emergency response where every component worked together as a team.
But even all that knowhow — from front-line emergency crews, to the hospital’s collective knowledge — can’t absolutely explain how Ashlyn pulled through.
“Some X-factor about Ashlyn that we don’t understand has allowed her to survive meaningfully,” said Arntfield.
Gord Skopnik is positive that other forces were at work in his daughter’s hospital room. It was prayer from friends and family. And it extended to a worldwide prayer chain of people, including some strangers, who heard about Ashlyn’s story.
“Based on what I’ve already observed, God is using this young lady to encourage others to seek God. She’s already done it,” her father said.
Ashlyn’s parents weren’t the only family members overseas on missionary work at the time of the crash. Ashlyn’s sister, Alyssa, and her husband, Andrew Stapley, had begun their own ministry in Botswana when they were contacted about Ashlyn’s dire prognosis.
They, too, made the long trip back to Canada and to the intensive care unit of the London hospital to support their gravely ill sister, who was still in a coma.
The family had gathered together in the waiting room to be part of that tough vigil. It was there that Alyssa’s cellphone pinged that she had a text message.
“From Ashlyn,” was the notification.
Somehow, in all of the intercontinental travel, the message sent before the crash had been delayed getting to Alyssa.
She opened the text and saw it was a piece of biblical scripture sent from one sister to another, from Psalms 42:8.
“Each day the Lord pours his unfailing love on me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God, who gives me life.”
The last time the police officers saw Ashlyn, she was dead.
But there she was in their Ontario Provincial Police detachment in London, only a month and a half later, using a walker and leaning on her husband for support. With them was Ashlyn’s father. They hugged her. They posed for pictures. Big police officers had tears in their eyes.
Ashlyn thanked them. She gave them small gifts and handmade cards bearing her photo.
“Thank you for your courage, determination and strong efforts,” she wrote on each card.
“I am so grateful for you all and the part you had in my rescue. One thing I’ll remember from this is that even when rescue seems impossible, with God all things are possible!”
“‘I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. — Philippians 4:13.’ ”
Const. Emad Haidar looked at her thoughtfully.
“I know you are a deeply religious family,” he said. “We all did our part, but God saved you at the end of the day. That’s what happened … we were the tools that made that happen.
“You have a second chance at life, so take advantage of that.”
They stood together in a circle, heads bowed, as Ashlyn’s father led them in a prayer.
So much is still unknown scientifically about how someone like Ashlyn, who died, can return to life as the same person she was before the crash.
Dr. Sam Parnia, director of critical care and resuscitation research at New York University’s Langone School of Medicine in New York City, has explored those questions in his studies into resuscitation and his conclusions that people can be brought back from clinical death if the right mechanisms are in place.
Parnia said there’s growing evidence that consciousness keeps functioning, even if the brain isn’t working, when the heart stops.
Parnia called Ashlyn’s survival “somewhat of a miracle,” but with explanations.
“There’s a lot of things that lined up for her perfectly that she managed to recover the way she did. That itself is a mini-miracle.”
And what does Ashlyn think?
Now back to work fulltime with a completely clean bill of health, she believes God has other plans for her.
“You know God has a time set for everyone, when it’s time for them not to be on Earth, I believe. And by all rights, according to everything that happens naturally, I should have been gone that night.”
“Now, I just got to trust that He is going to lead me to do and be wherever He needs me to be. And I want to do that.”
In September, Tim Wiechers — the Western University student who saw Ashlyn’s blue Toyota Corolla leave the road and who summoned help — and the OPP officers involved in her rescue — constables Peter Reintjes, Emad Haidar and Alex Soucie and sergeants Perry Graham and Calum Rankin — were honoured with provincial life-saving awards.
They gathered in a London hotel ballroom. The officers wore their dress uniforms and brought their families. Wiechers was accompanied by his mother, Brenda, a trauma nurse who provided him with advice over the phone the night of the crash.
Ashlyn and her husband, Brayden, were there, too. They sat at a table with Reintjes, delighted to see the officers’ efforts being recognized.
The officers and Wiechers were called to the front to receive their commendations from OPP Commissioner Vince Hawkes. Reintjes helped Ashlyn up and escorted her to the stage with them.
She stood in the middle while each one was awarded a citation and a life-saving pin.
They stood together for photos. Ashlyn was smiling.
Ashlyn was alive.