THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 20, 1995 TAG: 9512190106
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS
LENGTH: Long : 150 lines
KATHLEEN MORGAN IS about to show off her ambulatory skills.
Her sparkling brown eyes dance as she readies for the challenge, parking her electric wheelchair and rising slowly to her feet. Then begins a short walk through the nurse's office and down a corridor at Kempsville High School.
Each painstaking step requires much effort and concentration, but this feisty 15-year-old is not about to be kept down.
The steps Kathleen takes each day are the realization of what once seemed an impossible dream.
On Dec. 6, 1992, at 5:05 p.m., Kathleen was struck by a car as she attempted to cross Holland Road. For four months she lay in a deep coma. Doctors did not expect her to live, let alone walk and talk. But more than three years later she is doing all of these things and more.
Her parents, Ed and Mary Morgan, have devoted themselves to her ongoing recovery. The family has incurred about $4.5 million in medical bills for Kathleen's treatment and do not yet know how much their insurance will pay.
Kathleen's story will air on WVEC-TV Channel 13 at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 23 and Christmas. Hers is one of four vignettes about patients and former patients of the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk that will comprise the 30-minute show ``Everyday Miracles.''
Also part of the annual holiday program will be stories about Emanuella Johnson, a Norfolk 3-year-old with AIDS who's living each day to its fullest; Edwin Ward, 7, of Elizabeth City, N.C., who suffered a stroke last year and was rushed to the Children's Emergency Center at CHKD; and Jamontay Gatlin of Norfolk, who has spent months fighting for his life in the CHKD Neonatal Care Unit.
Classes at Kempsville High are about to change, so Kathleen doesn't venture far down the hall. She turns and heads back to the nurse's office and her wheelchair. Her right foot juts to the side, a condition that soon may be helped by surgery.
Each day, she walks these same halls with Curtis Brown, teaching assistant and football coach at Kempsville High. ``She asked me to walk with her, and I said, `all right,' '' says the 6-foot-10 Brown. It was only late this summer that Kathleen learned to walk on her own.
When she's not walking with her father or Brown, Kathleen walks with Ann Whitfield, another teaching assistant at Kempsville.
When Kathleen regained consciousness after more than 100 days in a coma, her family was incredibly thankful. Later, when she took her first steps and uttered her first words, they knew that they had seen and heard a miracle. Now, they and others stand in awe of the 15-year-old's indomitable spirit.
The Kempsville High sophomore credits her remarkable recovery from a near-fatal accident three years ago to the help she received and, not incidentally, to her faith in God.
Kathleen's story is one of inspiration.
``We're so proud of her,'' says her father, Navy Capt. Ed Morgan. ``It's a precious little girl we have there.''
The father spends time each day walking with his daughter. They eat breakfast together and just do ``a lot of talking and walking,'' Ed Morgan said.
Talking is now a precious skill for Kathleen, who was unable to speak for months after the accident.
From the moment she regained consciousness, Kathleen could understand language. But she couldn't talk.
``I taught myself how to talk, lip read, watched tongues form the words,'' said Kathleen. ``My first word was `Ma,' '' she remembered. With the help of speech therapy, she learned to talk again. Today her voice is strong and steady.
Kathleen's mother, Mary Morgan, is a nurse, and since the accident has devoted her life to helping her daughter. Recently, she quit her nursing job so that she could tend to Kathleen full time.
``It never hit the mom part of me until it happened,'' said Mary Morgan, recalling the night of her daughter's accident.
The mother of four heard the voice on her police scanner calling for help. A volunteer with the Kempsville Fire and Rescue Squad, Mary Morgan glanced at the clock and wondered for a second: Could it possibly be her daughter Kathleen, already five minutes late in arriving home? This delay was unusual for the 12-year-old.
Minutes later, Mary Morgan's phone rang and the voice of a police officer confirmed the mother's worst fear. Kathleen had been struck by a car as she tried to cross the street. Mary Morgan left for the accident scene right away, praying that her daughter would be alive when she got there.
When she arrived on the scene, her medical instincts took over. She turned into a nurse and worked to save her daughter. Mary Morgan was, at the time, a trauma nurse at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.
``It was like God was right there,'' she said, remembering that fateful night.
She made mental notes on her daughter's condition - vital signs and neurological responses. Then Kathleen was rushed to the trauma center at Sentara Norfolk General and, after medical assessment, was admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.
Physicians and nurses pooled their skills and technology to keep Kathleen alive. But the extent of her injuries had dire implications. A head scan revealed that she had a severe closed head injury with hemorrhaging in the mid-brain, which affects memory, speech and the muscles and nerves on the right side of the body. She also had skull fractures over the back of her brain. Perhaps worst of all, Kathleen was in a deep coma.
Capt. Ed Morgan, on a Navy ship in the Adriatic Sea, learned of his daughter's accident and flew back to Hampton Roads to be with his family. Kathleen's memories of the next four months are clouded; yet she remembers being assured that she would ``make it back,'' that she would be healed.
``It was like my guardian angel was looking down on me,'' Kathleen said last week.
Pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Joseph Dilustro told Mary Morgan that the blood clots in her daughter's head could not be removed. He inserted a tube deep into her brain to monitor the intracranial pressure. Brain swelling needed to be treated immediately or Kathleen would die, he told Mary Morgan. But he had words filled with hope: ``These kids are miracle works . . . the guardian angels these kids have are fabulous, incredible,'' Mary Morgan recalled the doctor saying.
The next morning a friend gave Mary Morgan a guardian angel pin, and she, in turn, pinned it to her daughter's leg cast. The small gold metal angel received the blessing of a priest from Norfolk's Christ the King Catholic Church, where the Morgans then attended services.
In January 1993, with Kathleen still in a coma, but stable, the Morgans went with their daughter to Richmond for long-term inpatient rehabilitation, which wasn't available locally. Mary Morgan stayed at the Richmond Ronald McDonald House and got a job teaching and working at the Medical College of Virginia. The days stretched into weeks, the weeks into months with little progress.
But the dedicated parents kept a close vigil, talking to Kathleen day and night. ``We read to her,'' remembered Ed Morgan. But Kathleen only looked straight ahead and showed no response.
Then, one April day, Kathleen regained consciousness, and, on Nov. 23, 1993, nearly a year after the accident, Mary and Ed Morgan brought their daughter home from Richmond. She was ready to be an outpatient at CHKD but still had a long way to go.
Again, specialists at CHKD worked out a therapy plan for Kathleen. Today, the recovery continues, with each day bringing a more positive prognosis.
Kathleen is maintaining good grades and aspires to a career in architecture. She and her family are members of St. Mark's Catholic Church in Kempsville.
The steps Kathleen takes are made possible by the many who walk with her. Her words are made possible by those who talk with her.
Kathleen and those who have cared for and love her agree that the miracle that is her life is a gift from God. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos, including the cover, by STEVE EARLEY
Kathleen Morgan greets Curtis Brown, a teaching assistant and
football coach at Kempsville High, who walks with her every day.
Kathleen Morgan goes for a walk with her father, Navy Capt. Ed
Morgan. They do ``a lot of talking and walking,'' Ed Morgan said.
Kathleen shares a laugh with her mother and works on the computer
with her father.
by CNB