A 7-year-old girl who broke her neck in a car crash Saturday needs nothing short of a miracle, her mother said.
Aubree Kinney was seated behind her mother, 34-year-old Amber Hendrix, as she was driving on Smokey Road in Newnan just before 5 p.m., according to the Georgia State Patrol crash report. When Hendrix turned left onto Old Corinth Road, a minivan collided with the car Hendrix was driving.
Aubree was rushed to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, according to the GSP.
Doctors determined Aubree had a damaged spinal cord, brain swelling and a collapsed lung, family friend Dawn Williams wrote in a GoFundMe campaign.
Help with Aubree's medical costs: GoFundMe.com/Aubree-needs-a-miracle
Since the collision, Aubree has been mostly unresponsive, only occasionally moving her eyes. On Monday, doctors told Hendrix they are 99.9 percent sure Aubree’s injuries will leave her a quadriplegic.
Hendrix told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Wednesday that they do have hope.
“We met with the doctors at 12:30 p.m. (Wednesday),” Hendrix said. “We’re waiting for the swelling to go down and her to wake up.”
But Aubree’s on life support, unable to breathe on her own, Hendrix said.
Any child involved in such a trauma would be expected to have a long recovery time, but because Aubree had a stroke when she was in the womb, she already had serious medical issues, Hendrix said.
The first six weeks of Aubree’s life were spent in the hospital, followed by another month at home with a feeding tube.
The child’s body doesn’t naturally produce certain hormones, such as cortisol, which is released in response to stress.
“So her body cannot recover on its own,” Williams wrote in the campaign.
Before the crash, Aubree took daily medications, growth shots and had blood work done every three months to monitor her adrenal insufficiency.
Having gone through all that already is what gives the girl’s mother hope — more hope than even the doctors have, Hendrix said.
“They’re worst-case-scenario type people,” she said. “I’m never going to give up.”
They are praying for money to help with medical costs and have faith for her full recovery, but Hendrix said because Aubree went without oxygen so long, she knows she “may not get the same girl back.”
Hendrix, family friends and Aubree’s three sisters, ages 14, 10 and 9, are dedicated to believing Aubree will open her eyes to see them there with her.
“We just need a lot of prayer because God works miracles,” Hendrix said.
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