'Miracle Girl' Walks Again on Her Own After Doctors Declared Her 99 Percent Brain Dead
An Australian girl who doctors said was almost completely brain-dead just over eight months ago has defied the odds by walking again on her own power. She's now known as the "miracle girl."
Last September, 6-year-old Mackinlee Anderson was involved in a serious car accident that left her grandmother dead and her mother and brother injured. The accident, which happened in Port Macquarie, involved three cars, a utility vehicle and a truck.
Anderson suffered various injuries including a broken pelvis in three places, a broken femur, a ruptured bladder, a dislocated hip, paralysis on her left side and most serious of all, extensive brain injury.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
According to Anderson's online fundraising page, a neurosurgeon declared that the child was 99.8 percent brain-dead and told her mother, Kylee Anderson, that there wasn't much hope for her daughter.
Anderson's injuries required her to be placed on life support and undergo an extensive 13-hour surgery. The child spent 15 days in the intensive care unit.
Although most people diagnosed with such a severe brain injury are likely to die and are never able to speak, voluntarily move or walk again, young Anderson didn't become another statistic.
Little by little, Anderson continued to make progress.
Although Anderson was only able to communicate at first by blinking her eyes, she eventually regained her speaking abilities on the 33rd day in the hospital. Also on the 33rd day, she was able to move her legs and begin learning to walk again.
An update posted to Anderson's GoFundMe page about two weeks ago explains that Anderson walked again on her own following the removal of a cast from her foot.
Last week, Kylee Anderson posted a video to Facebook showing her daughter walking again, 9News reported. The video shows the child walking down a hallway while saying that "Walking is the best. Walking is great."
"It is amazing, we are still just in shock," Anderson told 9News.
The mother admitted that a few months ago, she never thought she would see her daughter walk again on her own so quickly.
"Mackinlee amazes me every day with her determination. Every day the doctors say she can't do something and the next day she can do it," the mother said. "And she walks everywhere now, around the house, everywhere. You just can't keep her still."
"They are saying that after walking comes running and skipping and jumping," she added. "Well, she jumped the other night and landed on her feet. It totally shocked us all."
Although doctors told Anderson after the accident that her daughter wouldn't be the "same little girl," she told 9News that her daughter is still the "same little girl she was before the accident."
According to the mother, her daughter is still in rehabilitation at Lady Cilento Hospital but has returned to school.
The GoFundMe page established to help pay for Anderson's medical bills has raised just over $3,000 in five months.
Earlier this month, another miracle recovery was reported.
Trenton McKinley, a 13-year-old Alabama boy who suffered severe brain damage and seven skull fractures in a dune buggy accident, told a local Fox News affiliate that he believes he was heading to Heaven when he started to regain consciousness the day before doctors were scheduled to pull the plug on his life support.
"There's no other explanation but God," McKinley was quoted as saying. "There's no other way that I could've came back. Even doctors said it."
