KAHS students recovering after sliding accident

By Deborah Rafford
Special to the Pioneer Times
Contributed photo/Deb Rafford
SLIDING ACCIDENT — Kathading High School students Kacey Fogarty, left, and Allison Moore were seriously injured Feb. 20 in a sliding accident in Patten. Fogarty broke vertebrae in her back, while Moore sustained a major leg injury. Behind the girls are, from left, Lisa Fogarty, Errol Hunt and Debbie Berry.
    PATTEN — We’ve all done it. Looked down a snow-covered hill, jumped on our sleds and headed south, screaming all the way to the bottom. On a clear Saturday afternoon on Feb. 20, Allison Moore and Kacey Fogarty, both students at Katahdin High School, went for the ride of their lives, and almost let the hill they were sliding on live up to its name.
    Killer Hill, a snowmobile and ATV trail to the east of Route 11 in Patten, was the place that sent both girls to the hospital, and if not for friend Levi Robinson being there, both might not have survived.
    On a plastic ‘tote’ sled with high sides, both girls climbed in, with Kacey in the front, and shoved off down the hill. They only started three-quarters of the way up, (most people only go a third of the way). About half way down the trail, the girls’ sled veered off left, then turned and shot to the right off the trail and into a tree. The sled came to an abrupt halt, but both girls kept going. Kacey, being in front, ducked and covered her head. Allison’s knee drove into her back and flung her out of the sled. Allison flew out onto the opposite side of the tree, not knowing quite how she got there. Allison started screaming for Levi, who was waiting his turn from up the hill. Running to the scene, Levi used Kacey’s phone to call her mom, and Allison called her mom. Levi then called 9-1-1.
    Kacey recalls that she was perfectly calm (probably in shock) during the whole ordeal. Levi was freaking out, until Kacey told him to calm down.
    Jesse Chaloux, a member of the ambulance crew was first on scene. He assessed the girls’ condition and kept them calm until the Patten Ambulance, with Brett Morse and Ed Noyes, and Steve Yates, along with others arrived. They strapped both girls onto backboards and took them down the hill by snowmobile to the ambulance. Both girls were taken to Millinocket Regional Hospital. Allison talked non-stop all the way to the hospital, trying to keep her mind off the pain, whereas Kacey hardly spoke a word.
    Kacey was hyperventilating by the time she reached the hospital. Pain meds were administered, and a CAT SCAN and X-Rays were done. The KHS junior had fractured her spine in two places, and punctured her liver. After a few hours, Kacey was life-flighted to EMMC, in Bangor.  She remembers being “happy” on the flight after having morphine administered before leaving.
    Allison, a KHS sophomore, had to have her snowboots and jeans cut off at the scene. Her mother, Debbie Berry, was at home in Sherman when she got the call. Her daughter was on the other end of the line saying, “Mom, don’t freak out, but Kacey and I just hit a tree and I think my legs are broken,” she said. “I asked Levi to get on the phone and explained, I was 15 miles away, but I flew 70-80 mph. I was there in about six minutes. It took me longer to climb the hill to my daughter than to drive to the hill.”
    Kacey’s mom, Lisa, was also at home. “Levi called the house,” she stated, “All three had left together to go sliding. No one said exactly where, just that they were going sliding. I had my snowmobile helmet sitting by the door. I jokingly asked if they wanted to take it.” Her daughter said “no,” and Allison stated that, “Dad just made that same joke.”
    Levi said, “Kacey’s down and I need you to come here,” recalls Lisa Fogarty. “I said, ‘OK, but I need a shower and to iron my clothes before I come up.’ Levi was freaking out, saying, ‘no, I need you to come right now. The girls hit a tree and both are laying on the ground. Allison has some broken bones and Kacey is laying in the snow. She can’t move.’ It took me about three minutes to get to the hill from the Post Office in Stacyville.”
    With tears running down her cheeks, Lisa recalls that awful experience. “It took me a long time to climb up that hill too. Allison was just screaming. I went over to her first. I asked Kacey if she was OK, and she calmly said, ‘yes, I just can’t move.’ I had my daughter Brittany come over and comfort Allison while I went to Kacey. I will always hear those screams, Allison was in so much pain.” Fogarty said.
    A caravan of vehicles got to Millinocket ahead of the ambulance and were there to meet them coming in.
    In Millinocket, a CAT scan was done. “Lisa saw a friend, P.A. Kevin Olsen, run into the scan room. He came out and told Kacey’s parents, “It’s not bad, but it’s not real good either.”
    “I had punctured my liver, broken my back in what they thought were three places, and they thought something was wrong with my lung,” stated Kacey. “The nurses took me back to my room and gave me morphine every 10-20 minutes.”
    Since Kacey’s injuries were more severe than Allison’s, she left Millinocket via Life Flight, while Allison had to endure another ambulance ride. Kacey stated that the worst thing about going by Life Flight ride was having to go to the bathroom ‘really, really bad’.
    When she landed at EMMC, Kacey was put into a trauma room and all her family, relatives and friends were there.
    “I kept calling for pain meds and they never seemed to come,” she said. “Nurses came in and kept squeezing my legs for feeling. They made me scream and cry. I was taken to the fifth floor to be measured for a back brace before surgery. I had pulled a muscle on my left side which really, really hurt when they moved me.”
    Surgery wasn’t scheduled until Monday at 4:30 p.m. After surgery, Fogarty was taken to the fifth floor and was put on a morphine pump.
    “Later that day, Levi was there with me when he experienced another scare,” Kacey said. “He couldn’t wake me up, and I wasn’t breathing. He ran and found Debbie (Lisa had gone home for fresh clothes and dad had gone to the hotel for a shower.”  
    “My daughter Danielle came screaming into the cafeteria to get me,” said Berry. “Allison’s father later told me he had never seen me move so fast.”
    Kacey had to be ‘bagged’ and medicine was given to counteract the effects of so much morphine in her system, then she was taken to the third floor for rehab. It was 10 days of eating nothing but Jello that took 10 pounds off her six foot, two inch, 125-pound frame.
    Upon Allison’s arrival in Bangor, she had to stay in a hallway for quite awhile. Her foot was wrapped to tight in Millinocket, so it throbbed all the way down.
    “They got me off the board and cut the rest of my clothes off me,” Allison said. “They pulled my clothes off and made me scream. I went for X-rays and was sent right to surgery. This was at 7:45 p.m. I had shattered the whole top of my left foot, and broke the top part of the tibular plateau, the right kneecap. Pins, screws, plates and rods hold her together.
    “When I woke up from surgery three and a half hours later, I was kinda loopey,” she laughed. “I was very sleepy, but remembered parents, relatives and friends standing there. I was wheeled up to my room on the fifth floor around 2:30 a.m. I was on med surge for two days before being taken to the third floor for rehab, physical and occupational therapy. “I woke up one night really confused, and didn’t know where I was.”
    The day before being released, Allison woke up and was having difficulty breathing and was having severe back pain. Thinking it was a muscle spasm, warm blankets and a backrub were issued. When the doctor came in to check, he wanted to make sure it wasn’t a blood clot, so he ordered a scan. Unfortunately, it was a clot in the lower right lung, and the bottom of her left lung had collapsed.
    “Back to the fifth floor I went,” she recounts, “I went for observation and was there for another week. They gave me medicine to dissolve the clot, and I have to be on blood thinners for the next six months.”
    Kacey came home Saturday, March 6 in a back brace, crutches and a cushion. She was out of school for a week, then started with schoolwork at home. She did four classes at home and went back to school the end of the second week for two classes. She is hoping to get back to more classes next week, but can’t endure sitting with her brace as it chafes her body when she sits up to long. “Innocent fun is what hurts the most,” she grimaces as she stands up to relieve the pain.
    Moore followed Fogarty home on Sunday, March 7, but won’t be able to return to school until after her April 15 appointment. She is currently being seen by the Visiting Nurses of Aroostook, undergoing physical and occupational therapy at home.
    The girls would both like to send out kudos to the Patten Ambulance Crew, Levi and both Millinocket Regional and EMMC for all the care given to them. Diane Lane of Sherman has been instrumental in Allison’s at-home care.
    Errol Hunt, along with community members Peggy Robinson and Jane Ricci, got together recently to see what could be done to help the parents cover the cost of taking the girls to rehab in Houlton, and alleviating some of the medical bills for both families.
    There will be a spaghetti dinner and auction held at the Katahdin Elementary School in Stacyville on Sunday, April 11 from 1-4 p.m. An auction will be held, and big ticket items include four Red Sox tickets (together) for a September game. A snowmobile with electric starter has been donated by Crawford Homes in Houlton, and Bates Oil has donated heating oil.
    If anyone would like to donate items to this worthy cause, please contact Peggy at 365-4307, or Errol at 538-6755. Monetary donations can also be sent to Errol Hunt, P.O. Box 326, Sherman, ME 04776.