A 17-year-old is in recovery after sustaining serious injuries from a motor vehicle accident on August 18th.
Michelle Schlacter is originally from Weyburn. She is the first-born daughter of Toni Schlacter and Brad Johnson, who also have twin 12-year-old girls, Tori and Serena. The family now lives in Bulyea, north of Regina.
Family friend Gina McKerricher said Michelle had been traveling with her boyfriend Kayne and their friend Woody on a grid road in foggy, wet conditions when their vehicle ended up heading toward the ditch.
"The truck rolled, I think they said 12 times, so six times nose-to-tail and then six times side-to-side," she shared. "They all had their seat belts on, but during one of those rotations, the seatbelt unhooked, the airbags in the truck did not go off, and Michelle was thrown from the truck, they said either 20 to 25 feet, and she landed on a barbed wire fence."
"They're all very lucky to be alive. They all had injuries, but Michelle's were by far the worst out of the three. She's fractured pretty much head to toe," she noted.
"It's just a freak thing that happened. Accidents happen, no matter how experienced or not experienced as a driver you are. We've had some gnarly fog this summer. There are some days I can't see two feet in front of me."
McKerricher said Michelle's fractures included one on her skull resulting in a grapefruit-sized goose egg on her head on the left side, as well as all of her ribs, collar bone, and she also broke her hand.
Michelle had to be resuscitated three times. The nearest hospital was in Kerrobert, from whence she was transported to North Battleford.
"They'd done a CT scan, and there's no fluid on the brain, which is really good, but that injury is going to take a long time to heal. She fractured her spine, pretty much from the base of her neck all the way down to her pelvis."
While Michelle was able to be released from the hospital on August 26th, the road to recovery will be a long one.
"She is home now, but [I'm] just trying to make everything a little bit easier for them on the financial fronts because of all those little added costs that you don't even think of come up when something like this happens to a family."
McKerricher, who works in finance, gladly took on the task of organizing a GoFundMe for Michelle's family to help cover travel costs from Bulyea to physiotherapy appointments in Regina, to her family physician in Weyburn, and potentially to a specialist in Saskatoon.
"There's going to be a lot of travel, and Michelle is going to be doing physio for six to eight months, two to three days a week, so it's going to be a long haul until she's feeling better and fully back on her feet," she shared.
While the GFM is currently sitting just under $4,000, the goal is $15,000.
"I know that maybe sounds like a lot, but when you're paying for all these extra little things and with Toni being her primary caregiver to help her with the day-to-day stuff and take her to all of the appointments, that money goes so fast."
McKerricher said they hope to alleviate some of the family's stress while Michelle recovers, "I mean, they do have the twins still and Brad's working full time, so he's busy taking care of the family and it's a lot, but they're doing it, right? And that's from so much support from friends and family to help them through."
Since Michelle, who had been attending high school in Strasbourg, is in Grade 12 this year, "the goal is to have her at her grad and up on that stage."
"She can't go to school, so they're trying to get her set up to do her schooling online so that she can do it from home, at least for the first semester, and then she's hoping by second semester, she'll be back in school, in class."
Considering the damage caused by the accident, McKerricher, who saw Michelle this past weekend, said, "she's looking quite a bit better now."
"It is a miracle, just seeing how far she's come in the last month."
"When we were visiting, she would come out, sit down for a little bit, and she's like, 'well, I have to go back and lay down'. But it's good that she knows, being a 17-year-old kid, you would want to be with everybody and you'd want to hang out. But she's very mindful in that way, where she knows that she needs to take care of herself."
McKerricher added they hope to host a steak night fundraiser in November in Weyburn, as well as another in Bulyea or Strasbourg, to get the community together.
"I know she would really like to be there because this has meant a lot to her."
She added that she is in touch with the family every day, ensuring they have what they need with the donated funds.
Find the GoFundMe page HERE. Anyone who would prefer to send donations directly can send them to: sisters_2013@hotmail.com.
Photos showing the young couple, the vehicle damage, as well as the hospital stay and release can be found in the gallery below.
