Senior Mariam Hamdan was an extremely productive student and athlete that had many plans for her future. But, on Aug 8, 2017 Hamdan was out with her mom and aunt running errands for back to school supply shopping. The trip came to an abrupt stop when they got into a tragic car accident that sent them all to the hospital for over a month to recover from their severe and rare injuries. After she was released from the hospital, she was sent straight to rehab for two weeks. She was then sent home for the first time since the accident. With this, she then finally started off her junior year but had to quickly catch up on work before the semester ended. She was placed in homebound where a teacher, Mrs. Heyer, brought all of her school work and tutored her at home. Because of the accident, Hamdan’s injuries caused her to lose the ability to walk. To help, she has been attending physical therapy to learn that movement again and gain her muscle strength that she lost. Throughout her journey, she has had many surgeries to reconstruct her arm and ankle. Recently, she had a surgery that replaced her missing ankle that soon took her off of crutches and into a walking boot for the first time in over a year. She was then able to take her first steps on her own without help. Hamdan’s story doesn’t end here as she still has many plans for her leg. She hopes in the future that plastic surgery will help make her leg look as normal as it did before.

Video by Kamryn Bell