{"id":27386,"date":"2016-10-19T08:05:12","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T15:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/ketchikan-plane-crash-survivor-returns-home\/"},"modified":"2016-10-19T08:05:12","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T15:05:12","slug":"ketchikan-plane-crash-survivor-returns-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/ketchikan-plane-crash-survivor-returns-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Ketchikan plane crash survivor returns home"},"content":{"rendered":"

KETCHIKAN<\/strong> \u2014 The smile of Morgan Enright lit up The Point art cafe on Saturday evening as she exchanged hugs and conversation with people who\u2019d come to welcome her home to Ketchikan and Southeast Alaska.<\/p>\n

The festive balloons, home-baked desserts and big \u201cWelcome Home\u201d sign created by Angie Taggart\u2019s students at Fawn Mountain Elementary School suggested the energetic 22-year-old surrounded by friends and family had returned after a long time away.<\/p>\n

Which was accurate, in a way.<\/p>\n

Enright\u2019s return to Alaska comes after months of medical care and rehabilitation following an April 8 plane crash in which she was the sole survivor. That she was found alive after the impact that killed three others on snow-covered mountainside of Admiralty Island could be considered a miracle. That she was able to stand and greet guests at a welcome-home party in October \u2014 and be preparing to return to limited work as a heavy equipment operator \u2014 is, as she says, \u201cmiraculous.\u201d <\/p>\n

She suffered a traumatic brain injury, a fractured right ankle, and blunt trauma to her left leg that resulted in the loss of muscle that lifts the foot and that required a skin graft. Some medical issues continue, but the recovery process has been \u201cpretty steady,\u201d Enright said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just the first couple of weeks there where people didn\u2019t know whether I was going to live or die,\u201d she told the Daily News this past week.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody who I\u2019ve worked with has said it\u2019s miraculous,\u201d Enright said. \u201cEven the workman\u2019s (compensation representatives), when I talked with them \u2026 a couple of weeks ago, they said they were not expecting me to go back to work for at least two years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enright works for Ketchikan Ready-Mix & Quarry, a company co-owned by her father and two uncles. She grew up around heavy equipment, and started working during her late teens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last 4 to 5 years, I\u2019ve been working road construction as a heavy equipment operator,\u201d she said, adding that she was based out of Wrangell mostly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m on the travel crew, so I\u2019m where the jobs are,\u201d Enright said. \u201cI\u2019ve been all over Prince of Wales Island. \u2026 I just go to where the work is.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the morning of April 8, Enright was flying for work from Wrangell to Angoon aboard a Cessna 206 floatplane operated by Sunrise Aviation.<\/p>\n

According to a preliminary report released by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Sunrise pilot complained of clouds and planned an alternate route.<\/p>\n

At 9:12 a.m., the plane struck a mountainside on Admiralty Island about 17 miles southeast of Angoon, killing the pilot and two passengers.<\/p>\n

Winds prevented rescuers from reaching the plane until that mid-afternoon. Surprised to find Enright alive, they stabilized her enough to be hoisted into a Coast Guard helicopter and flown to Juneau.<\/p>\n

Enright was flown to Juneau and quickly medevaced to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where she began her stay in the intensive care unit under heavy medication and on a ventilator. Daily dialysis was begun to assist her kidney function, according to postings by her mother, Chere Klein, on the CaringBridge.org website.<\/p>\n

She underwent surgery on her left leg, and, by April 21, had been stabilized enough to be moved to Harborview\u2019s trauma acute care wing.<\/p>\n

Physical and occupational therapy began. By early May, she was able to end dialysis, and start eating ice chips and soft foods.<\/p>\n

On May 10, she had surgery on her right ankle before being transferred on May 12 to the Craig Hospital, a center near Denver that specializes in neuro-rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

During the next two and a half months at the Craig Hospital, she continued with intensive physical, occupational and speech therapies, in addition to another surgery on her left leg. She advanced from a wheelchair to a walker, and then was able to take her first steps without a walker on July 6, Klein wrote.<\/p>\n

The process toward walking again wasn\u2019t easy, Enright said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCraig Hospital stands out to me, just because I wanted to be walking from the point that I was stuck in the wheelchair and couldn\u2019t even get out of my wheelchair or bed,\u201d she said. \u201cThey got me walking in the two and a half months that I was there. Hard work. \u2026 I was like amazed how hard it would be \u2014 it really was \u2014 to walk after you haven\u2019t been doing it for a few months.\u201d<\/p>\n

In late July, Enright transferred to QLI \u2014 Quality Living Inc. \u2014 a residential rehabilitation program in Omaha, Nebraska, that focuses on brain and spinal cord injuries.<\/p>\n

Enright\u2019s physical, occupational and speech therapies, in addition to vocational therapy, continued at QLI.<\/p>\n

Several weeks ago, a QLI vocational therapist accompanied Enright on a trip to Southeast Alaska. They visited job sites and looked at equipment to help determine what Enright might be able to do when she returned to the state.<\/p>\n

A story about Enright on QLI\u2019s website said the Southeast Alaska assessment included \u201crealistic workplace tasks under true-to-life circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ensuing assessments judged Morgan\u2019s physical capability entering and exiting equipment command seats, as well as the degree of cognitive support Morgan would need to complete complex tasks,\u201d the QLI story continued.<\/p>\n

As Enright said: \u201cShe got a sense of what I do at work.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Enright returned to Alaska this month, she\u2019d be able to return to work, \u201cslowly at first, with more responsibility coming after time,\u201d according to the story.<\/p>\n

Enright said the plan has her starting with up to three to four hours of work and then taking breaks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to head back into (equipment operations), and just see how it is and if I can do it well,\u201d she said. \u201cI know it was a lot of labor before, and I was in much better shape than I am now, but hopefully I can get back to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although her improvement has been extraordinary, Enright said there was interest from staff in having her stay at QLI a while longer. Still, she wanted to get home and \u201cget going.\u201d She\u2019d prefer to continue improving and not need to spend more time in rehabilitation centers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe teams are amazing, they do some really good work,\u201d she said. \u201cI hope I don\u2019t have to be back for really any other reason other than to say \u2018hi\u2019 and to visit. But I might have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

At present, Enright said she has a brace on her left leg and she experiences some nerve pain.<\/p>\n

The brain injury has been and will continue to be the primary issue, with progress being made on short-term memory and cognitive functions as the brain essentially rewires itself, according to Klein. That aspect of healing is expected to take some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a couple years process,\u201d Enright said.<\/p>\n

Klein told the Daily News that Enright would continue to schedule rehabilitation appointments with staff in the Lower 48 for at least another month.<\/p>\n

A theme of conversation during Saturday\u2019s event was the high level of support Enright and her family have received from members of the Ketchikan community since the April 8 incident. There also was appreciation for the medical staffs and level of care they\u2019ve provided for Enright.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve really had an amazing team the whole way through, whether it was at Craig Hospital or QLI \u2014 or Harborview, which I don\u2019t remember much of,\u201d Enright had said earlier in the week. \u201cI was at (Harborview) yesterday for a doctor\u2019s appointment and I got to meet quite a few people who were on my team in the ICU, which, of course, I don\u2019t remember, but they were just so happy that I came to say \u2018Hi.\u2019 And I was, \u2018Well, of course I would. I\u2019m up and about and I\u2019m here. \u2026 I\u2019m living because of you guys, probably.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While talking with this reporter, Enright\u2019s voice was bright and spirit determined. While focused on the future, she\u2019s keenly aware of her progress to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody really expected it to come along this fast,\u201d Enright said.<\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in the Ketchikan Daily News and is republished here with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KETCHIKAN \u2014 The smile of Morgan Enright lit up The Point art cafe on Saturday evening as she exchanged hugs and conversation with people who\u2019d come to welcome her home to Ketchikan and Southeast Alaska. The festive balloons, home-baked desserts and big \u201cWelcome Home\u201d sign created by Angie Taggart\u2019s students at Fawn Mountain Elementary School […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-27386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27386"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}