Kaylin Coy (28) of Louisville, KY leads a busy life, and spends many of her days volunteering at the Jefferson Town Bingo Hall. “When I got out of the hospital, it was only two days from me getting out before I was already back in the bingo hall. My boss is my aunt, so she was like, ‘Get your butt back here, I need you!’ So there I was, in a neck brace, and in a back brace.” Kaylin also does seasonal work designing and writing on Christmas ornaments. Someone introduced the idea to her, and Kaylin has done this work for the last six or seven years.
When she isn’t working, Kaylin enjoys spending time with her family. “I’m really family oriented. I have two sisters, and one sister who is like a godsister to me, and a brother as well. I also have two nieces through my god sister, who are my entire world.” Kaylin used to play volleyball in high school, something which dominated much of her time when she was younger, but after her accident, she is much more concerned with spending time with her family.
On March 28, 2015 at about 6:30 in the morning near the Lebanon Junction area, Kaylin was involved in a horrible car accident. “Me and five other friends went down to WKU for a party; one of our friends knew someone down there, so we went to go hang out for a little bit. On the way back, our driver fell asleep, and when he woke up he got scared and overcorrected. That caused us to flip four times into the other side of the highway. At some point, I was in the third row, but I was hanging out the back of the vehicle. So every time the car flipped, I was hitting the concrete. We flew into an SUV on the other side of the highway, and I was then air flighted to UofL Hospital, and underwent a 9.5 hour reconstructive back surgery in addition getting 117 stitches in my face, a clean break in my eye socket, and bruised lungs. I somehow also got four different types of pneumonia, so at that point I was fighting to live, because I couldn’t breathe, so they put me into a medically induced coma for 12 days, all while I was in the UofL ICU.”
“When they took me out of the coma, I was resting on the 8th floor at UofL, and was there for a little over a day. When I woke up I had a trach in my throat, and looked over and saw my mom who immediately calmed me down. She informed me I was in an accident and would need to be in a wheelchair, which was hard. I was transferred to Fraizer inpatient shortly after that, and was there for about two and a half months.” While she was in her coma, Kaylin’s white blood cell count was mixed up, and the UofL Health team thought the infection had spread to her picc line, and collapsed Kaylin’s lung on accident. She also suffered from a laceration on her liver, and broken T2, T3, T4, T5, and T6, so her spine is fused from T1 to T7. Kaylin also has a slight crack on her C3, and then two fractures on her L5. She was also on a ventilator throughout. “I was caught on my leg, which is what kept me in the car; I had to get 75 stitches in the side of my leg.”
Everything Kaylin experienced though is what she has been told, because she has a traumatic block of the event. “From my recollection, I got dropped off with some friends and I never even went to Bowling Green. I was having ICU delirium in the coma though, and saw some crazy stuff.” When she first woke up, she was paralyzed from the waist down for about a month, getting some movement back on Mother’s Day.
Waking up and processing what had happened was challenging for Kaylin. “I was honestly in shock; it felt like I was dreaming. I cried every day for almost two months, because I was coming to the realization that this is my life now, and a wheelchair was going to be part of that. I had to write on a white board at first, because I couldn’t talk so I had to learn how to talk again. The trach was horrible, I hated that.”
Kaylin was discharged to Frazier Rehabilitation Institute on April 13, 2015. “I’ll never forget that, because they told me Frazier has a water protocol, and I couldn’t wait to get over there and get something to drink!”
“Frazier was amazing. When I first got there it seemed like they were already trying to work on me before I even got over there. They made sure everything was set, and even brought another hospital bed in so she could sleep in the recovery room with me. They didn’t waste any time, I was starting therapy at 6 and 7:00 a.m. They made sure to get me up and going, and it was for a good reason. The first time that my occupational therapist came in, she brought me a one-pound weight. I couldn’t pick it up, I had no muscle whatsoever. I was emotional too; I wanted to do it, but I didn’t want to learn how to do it again. They helped figure out what treatment and recovery process would be best for me, and kept me calm throughout, especially with simple things I couldn’t do initially like pouring a glass of water.” Kaylin did inpatient therapy for five days a week while in Frazier, and then did outpatient therapy five days a week for a year. “I was up on the treadmill, walking and doing all kinds of stuff.”
Presently, Kaylin still uses a wheelchair to get around, but can walk with a walker in limited distances. She’s still working with the Frazier team to get strength and mobility back in her legs. “I have really bad tone, which refers to the tightness of your muscles and your bones, and it just does what it wants; when it’s really strong, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s in my right leg mostly, and it goes from my toes through my back.” Kalin was released on June 4, 2015.
Though she has begun adjusting to life since her accident, Kaylin still does frequent recovery work, especially with the team at Frazier. “I like going to Frazier, even though they give you a program to do at home, I like the community, and the people that are in there. You see other people with the same injury as you, but everyone is different. So it’s nice to have that motivation, and see those people and their progress, and try to get that same progress. Still to this day I tell people, ‘Whatever it is you’ve been through, if you’re still here, live your life. If I can live my life in a wheelchair, I feel like anyone can live.’ There are hard days, there are more hard days than easy or good days…but you have to keep going. That’s kind of my motto and what I want to show other people. Even if you’re hurt, and this or that happened, just because you accept and come to terms with it, doesn’t mean life is over. Your life doesn’t end because you had the worst breakup ever, or lost your leg. Life might be different, but it isn’t over.”
Kaylin has nothing but praise for the UofL and Frazier medical teams. “My mom in particular loved them, and said they couldn’t have been more amazing. They always kept her in the loop, advised as to what was happening. I think they were amazing. The thing I remember most about UofL was being on that main floor, and the nighttime nurse was only a little older than me. We didn’t talk, but she’d always pop her head in to check up on me. The day before I left, she asked if she could pray over me. In my mind, I had only seen her the one day I was awake. There was also a cleaning lady, and I told her how pretty I thought they were. She ended up leaving those earrings for me. They were like guardian angels. They made sure that I was making it out of there. They were very adamant about coming in to check on me, and they were very lenient with the amount of family I had in the room. We even celebrated Easter in UofL; they brought UofL to me!” 
Kaylin is still very close with the team at Frazier as well, and one of the team members is actually a family friend. “They have all definitely become family. There are plenty of UofL and Frazier family now.”
In the months and years ahead, Kaylin hopes to get to a point where she uses the walker more frequently, keeping the wheelchair for more long-distance travel. She had progressed to that point, but experienced a back problem, which briefly halted her progress. “I love vacations, so I definitely want to plan something soon; I love Florida, I just want to go anywhere warm and away from the cold and gray here.”
Kaylin Coy.
Family Oriented.
Trauma Survivor.
