Leonie Harm, who overcame a near-fatal accident, is the first UH woman to make the NCAA championships.
Freshman able to recover from accident to make a Cougar first
Leonie Harm has no memory of what happened on May 3, 2013.
Harm went to bed on a Thursday night. When she woke up in a German hospital the following Wednesday, Harm was hooked up to monitors and tubes, her body mangled and bruised.
“I was pretty much dead,” she said.
Harm is not supposed to be here, making history as the first woman from the University of Houston to play in the NCAA golf championships when she tees off Friday at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club.
Only 15 at the time, Harm left her house that Friday morning for her daily jog. A drunk driver going 45 mph hit Harm.
From that moment, Harm’s memory pauses.
‘A skyrocket trajectory’
As she has been told, a friend of her older brother’s, Marie Winter, happened to be waiting at a nearby bus stop, getting there 10 minutes early “because she had a bad feeling” and to smoke a cigarette. After Harm was hit, Winter used her Army training to keep Harm alert and slow the blood coming out of her ears until paramedics arrived.
“People say cigarettes kill,” said Harm, “but this one actually saved my life.”
Even then, the prognosis did not look good for Harm. Doctors told her family that most people hit at that speed have a 99.6 percent fatality rate.
“We’ll do what we can, but there’s no hope,” Harm said doctors told her family.
Harm, now 18, spent the next few days in a coma. She suffered broken ribs, a broken hip and ankle, a collapsed lung and head injuries. The only permanent damage: She no longer can hear well out of her right ear.
After a lengthy hospital stay and extensive rehabilitation, Harm eventually became one of the top junior golfers in Europe. Her arrival at UH was delayed until January while she played for Europe in the Junior Solheim Cup.
Once on campus, the freshman made an immediate impact. At the American Athletic Conference tournament, Harm fired a 69 as the Cougars won the title in only the program’s second year of existence.
In the Baton Rouge Regional, Harm shot a pair of 69s to tie for third among individual qualifiers. The Cougars finished in seventh, one shot out of qualifying for the NCAA championships.
“From her January to May, it’s just been a skyrocket trajectory,” UH coach Gerrod Chadwell said.
Take it from Rocky
Harm had offers from more established golf programs and had visits scheduled for San Diego State and Wake Forest. But it came down to the opportunity to be a part of building a program.
“She came here and fell in love with the opportunity,” Chadwell said. “She wanted to be part of something new where she could leave her own legacy.”
Chadwell doesn’t expect the big stage to be a problem, because Harm has considerable international experience. Harm is No. 46 in the latest world amateur golf rankings.
“I think she’s good enough to go win a national title as a freshman,” Chadwell said.
On visits home, Harm said she is approached at least once a week by other golfers who are familiar with her story.
“It reminds me not to take anything for granted,” she said.
To mark the three-year anniversary of the accident, Harm posted a photo from her hospital stay on Instagram.
Below it was a quote from Sylvester Stallone’s character in the 2006 movie “Rocky Balboa:” “Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and can keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.”
“I’m really thankful,” Harm said. “I was definitely really lucky.”