Jenks teen defies odds, leaves hospital after deadly crash
BETHANY — When she arrived at Children’s Center Rehabilitation Hospital in August with broken bones in her neck and back, doctors doubted Izzy Kitterman would be able to breathe on her own again, let alone move under her own power.
When she was discharged for outpatient treatment on Tuesday, however, she could propel her own wheelchair with her arms, and nothing but a faint scar on her neck gave away that anything more serious than a slip on the soccer field had taken her off her feet.
Izzy, 13, was injured in a traffic accident near Purcell on July 17 when the SUV she was riding in collided with a tractor-trailer. The accident killed two of her siblings, Elizabeth Edwards and Beck Kitterman; Erin
Van Horn, who was driving the SUV; and Zac Van Horn, Van Horn’s son. Van Horn’s daughters, Lauren and Samantha, survived with lesssevere injuries. Most of the youths in the accident were members of the TSC-Hurricane soccer club in Jenks.
When Izzy arrived for rehabilitation, she needed a ventilator and a tracheostomy tube to breathe, and another tube for nutrition, said Dr. Steven Couch, a developmental pediatrician at Children’s in Bethany. A broken bone in her neck had injured her spinal cord, partially paralyzing her. She could move her arms a bit, however, which suggested the cord hadn’t been totally cut and that she might recover other abilities, he said. Fortunately, her brain wasn’t injured.
Nerves can “shut down” when injured, Couch said, and doctors can only guess at which might reawaken with time and therapy. Muscles, including the muscles that allow a person
to breathe, quickly weaken when they aren’t getting signals from the brain to work, so Izzy and patients like her have to work to do what once came naturally.
Helping a patient to breathe is a long process that starts by decreasing the amount of support the ventilator provides, then briefly testing whether the patient can breathe without it, said Dr. David Owens, respiratory therapy director at Children’s. Gradually, the tests become longer until the patient is breathing alone all day. Disconnecting the ventilator at night requires more caution because a patient is more likely to stop breathing while asleep, and can’t signal for help, he said.
At the same time Owens was pushing her to breathe on her own, Couch and his team were working with Izzy on other steps toward her independence, like feeding and dressing herself. They’ve also started working with her on standing and walking with a gait trainer — a device that’s like a walker, but with more support. They don’t know if she will be able to walk unassisted
again, but will continue to work with her a few times a week as an outpatient.
Izzy was understandably shocked and afraid after the accident, but she has taken an upbeat look at her recovery, Couch said. She’s also held onto her sense of humor, which some of her doctors were on the receiving end of when she enlisted staff to held her place plastic rats, snakes and insects to startle them, he said.
While she might not regain all the mobility, Izzy has come far enough that she’ll be able to live an independent life, Couch said. She won’t return to school immediately because of the demands of her therapy, he said, but she’ll be able to complete her education, have a career and do whatever else she wants to, even if she still needs a wheelchair.
And if her doctors know anything about Izzy, it’s not to underestimate her.
“I didn’t think with her spinal cord injury that high (in her neck) that she’d ever come off the vent,” Owens said. But, "everything she’s done has been a surprise.”