The parents of a student who has had parts of both her legs removed after a horror accident in the sea have given a major update into their daughter’s condition.
Hannah Smith, a 22-year-old arts graduate who is passionate about athletics, was on board a cruise with her best friend earlier this month when disaster struck.
The pair, who had only been on the trip for one day, were on a day excursion with other cruise passengers during a stop in the Bahamas.
It was there when Hannah fell from the side of a pontoon boat as it attempted to dock at Nassau, and was dragged under the ferry’s propellers.
The Memphis native suffered horrific injuries, including partially severed legs, and was rushed to the local hospital and later airlifted back home to the US to undergo serious surgeries.
The Royal Bahamian Police confirmed that her injuries were severe, saying in a statement: “The victim is alleged to have entered the water from a vessel she was a passenger on while it was attempting to dock. She sustained serious injuries to her lower body, caused by the vessel’s propeller.”
Hannah Smith was enjoying her first day on a cruise when she was involved in a life-changing accident out at sea (GoFundMe)
Surgeons at a Miami hospital carried out eight operations as they fought to save her life after the terrible accident.
According to her father, Marvin, she is currently in intensive care but is awake in between her surgeries.
He also revealed that she is still in intensive care and is awake between surgeries.
He told The Mirror: “She’s been so heavily medicated, she’s mentioned things but it’s like she’s having hallucinations.”
And according to mom Tracy: “With the sedations, medications, the trauma, everything, there were also hallucinations, which they tell us is part of coming off sedation.
“So, we have not asked her anything related to [the accident]. We need her focusing on her healing and not trying to remember or trying to relive it.”
The parents, who have set up a GoFundMe to help with the medical costs of the surgeries, have also revealed that Hannah is unaware of the true extent of her injuries, and that she is not lucid at this time.
Tracy said her daughter was ‘just starting her life and she’s got all these plans’ after graduating, adding: “One of the things that she said, with all the things that have happened to her, and it just touched us, it was so prophetic, she said: ‘Mommy, we’re all spirits walking around here and God just loans us a body’.
The accident has left Hannah without part of her legs (GoFundMe)
“Now we’ve got to stay strong for her, so we just try to follow her lead and help her in any way we can, whether that’s emotionally, spiritually, physically helping her, whatever it is.”
Marvin described his daughter as a ‘scholar, leader and community advocate’, explaining that she ‘graduated at the top of her class with Summa Cum Laude, from Miles College, earning respect and admiration from her peers, professors and sorority sisters’.
After ‘uplifting others’, now Hannah is ‘in need of the community’s support’.
Sadly, this isn’t the family’s first traumatic event involving a child as nine years ago, Hannah’s brother was involved in a motorbike crash which left him quadriplegic.
Joseph, who is now 30, was 21 when the accident happened, and learning of the news of his sister devastated him.
“It was hard for him to hear. When he heard about it, it really bothered him,” Tracy added to the Mirror. “Because every big brother wants to protect his sister.”
The family are praying for her safe recovery, and donations are being accepted to help them through the financial burden of hospital bills.
A Mexican Navy training ship collided with the Brooklyn Bridge leaving over 20 injured and two dead.
On Saturday night (May 17), a Mexican Navy training ship with 277 people onboard crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.
Officials report the ship – called Cuauhtémoc – was taking part in a global goodwill tour and was on the way to Iceland when its 147 foot masts collided with the bridge as it tried to pass underneath.
Twenty-two people were reported injured, according to the Mexican Navy. Two people remained in critical condition as of Sunday afternoon, the New York Police Department reports. And two people lost their lives.
Authorities have since named the two people who passed away as a result of the collision as América Yamilet Sánchez and Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos.
Multiple authorities have since detailed what they believe caused the ship to collide with the bridge.
The victims of the Mexican Navy ship’s Brooklyn Bridge collision
The first victim of the crash was identified by Governor of Veracruz Mexico, Rocío Nahle, as 21-year-old naval cadet América Yamilet Sánchez from Xalapa, Veracruz.
The post to Twitter continued: “All my affection, support, and solidarity to her family. My recognition to the @SEMAR_mx and my wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured.”
The local city council of San Mateo del Mar, in Oaxaca, Mexico, identified the second victim as Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos in a post to Facebook.
Family and friends of Sánchez gathered on Sunday to commemorate her.
A loved one of the young cadet, Gael de la Cruz, has spoken out questioning what happened to lead the ship to collide with the bridge.
She told Reuters: “It’s impossible for something so serious to not be thoroughly investigated. What happened there is illogical. There must be someone responsible.”
Indeed, an investigation into the crash was immediately launched and authorities have since spoken out about what caused the ship to crash.
Two people were killed and multiple injured (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Theories into what prompted collision between the Mexican Navy ship and Brooklyn Bridge
When President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the crash to reporters on Sunday, she referred to the crash as an ‘accident’.
She added: “We are deeply saddened by the loss of two crew members of the Cuauhtémoc Training Ship, who lost their lives in the unfortunate accident in New York Harbor. Our sympathy and support go out to their families.”
NYPD Special Operations Chief Wilson Aramboles, told reporters he believes there ‘was some mechanical issue’.
He said, as reported by Reuters: “It was the pilot that is assigned to navigate, you know, the boat out of the water. I believe he lost – and there was some mechanical issues that probably caused the ship to to hit the water.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Office of Emergency Management said in a statement the ship was headed in the wrong direction and not meant to sail under the bridge.
Marine experts have since stated it was the tide and water conditions which led to the crash, ABC notes.
Ultimately, multiple investigations into figuring out exactly what happened remain underway.
Investigations are ongoing (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Latest updates to the investigation into the Mexican navy ship and Brooklyn Bridge crash
Earlier today (May 19), the National Transportation Safety Board updated in a post to Twitter a team is ‘assembling in New York City to conduct a safety investigation into the Mexican Navy training ship, Cuauhtémoc, striking the Brookyln Bridge on Saturday’.
It explained: “The multidisciplinary investigative team is comprised of experts in nautical operations, marine and bridge engineering and survival factors.”
A press briefing is expected to be held tomorrow (May 20) with NTSB Member Michael Graham at the Sheraton Brooklyn New York Hotel at 3pm.
Mexico’s Navy is also investigating the crash, Mexican Navy Secretary Raymundo Pedro Morales Ángeles stating in a post to Twitter the day prior investigations will be ‘promptly followed up with total transparency and responsibility’.
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence, contact GrieveWell on (734) 975-0238, or email info@grievewell.com.
It’s the stuff of nightmares; being alone when a terrible accident happens with nobody to help.
One man’s quick thinking meant he was able to have both of his arms reattached, after a horror accident on a farm in North Dakota.
In 1992, teenager John Thompson was by himself when he got into an accident with a tractor, causing him to lose both arms.
Despite the terrible odds against him, John managed to stagger 100 yards to the house to try and get help.
He used his mouth to open the doorknob and make his way inside.
John lost both arms in the accident (LMN/YouTube)
Unable to dial a phone the usual way after his limbs had been chopped off, the distraught teen miraculously had the presence of mind to get hold of a pencil in his mouth.
Using the pencil, he was able to call his cousin who lived nearby in an attempt to get help.
He then recalls going into the bathroom so he didn’t bleed all over his mother’s carpet.
Against all odds, Thompson survived and managed to have both arms reattached, during a painstaking six hours of surgery.
More than 30 years after the accident, he can still remember every detail of what happened.
He told a documentary about how his shirt tails got caught in the shaft of the machine, and he reached to free himself.
“It got wrapped in with the power shaft. The next thing I know, everything is dark and I’m feeling funny.”
He woke to his dog licking his face, and soon realised that he had lost both arms from just below the shoulder.
“I’m just lying there on the stretcher and thinking ‘Why don’t they have the sirens turned on.’ And so I was complaining about that because they didn’t want to excite me and I’m like ‘well just turn the siren on.’ And then I remember the one gal who was with me in the back looked and told the guy to slow down. And I’m like ‘Ok, I have no arms, don’t slow the ambulance down just get me there,’” said Thompson.
In the decades since the incident, Thompson has reflected on the fame and notoriety he found.
“That was probably the hardest thing I had to deal with, was the notoriety,” he said.
“I keep trying to get away from it, but I have nowhere else to go, so I just keep going back to it. I can’t find nothing else,” he said. “I try doing other things and they just haven’t worked out. It always comes back to people knowing me and wanting to use me.”
He told the Star Tribune: “I keep trying to get away from it, but I have nowhere else to go, so I just keep going back to it. I can’t find nothing else,” he said.
“I try doing other things and they just haven’t worked out. It always comes back to people knowing me and wanting to use me.”
Nowadays he can flex his arms, but his hands are stuck with clenched fists unless he manually opens them.
His surgeon has offered prosthetic hands to help with his mobility, but Thompson says he has adapted and doesn’t want to lose his sense of touch.
“They said, ‘This is Oprah Winfrey,’ ” he said. “Good, this is John Thompson. I’m not canceling. I gave these people my word.
“I’d like to see what would happen to you if you’re 18 and you get thrown into all this. I’m damned impressed with what I’ve done.”
A man who burned his thumb during a camping trip with his friends in the US has become a bilateral amputee.
Max Armstrong, of Franktown – a town to the south of Denver in Colorado, went camping with his friends in Kiowa in December, when he burned his thumb on a skillet while cooking pasta for their dinner.
Max Armstrong was camping with his friends when he burned his thumb while cooking (Max Armstrong / SWNS)
“It was a hunting trip with friends that turned into a bit of a nightmare,” the 40-year-old explained.
“I grabbed a skillet wrong and my thumb touched the hot part, I could feel it burning as I moved it to the table but I didn’t want to drop it.
“I didn’t think much of it as I have gotten burns, scrapes and cuts from living in the outdoors and being outdoors my whole life.
“After dinner, I cleaned up the burn, put a bandage on it and left it.”
At the time, the Franktown business owner hadn’t thought anything of it but as the days passed he noticed his left leg had began to swell up, while his toenails began turning purple and he was in pain.
The burn to Max’s thumb led to sepsis and a bilateral amputation (Max Armstrong / SWNS)
Six days passed until he was driven to a nearby hospital (on December 7), and when he made it into the ER his eyes began rolling to the back of his head.
The reason for the delay was because he thought the pain had just came from hurting his ankle at some point without realising.
Doctors quickly confirmed that strep A bacteria had gotten into his burn and that quickly developed into sepsis – which can be life-threatening if not treated properly.
“Sadly, dinner was enough for the burn to get strep A,” Max added.
“At that point, my toenails started turning purple and the swelling had increased.”
Two months on from first burning his thumb, Max is recovering at home (Max Armstrong / SWNS)
Max was placed into an induced coma for six days, when he woke from the coma on December 13, Max says his feet were both completely black and doctors recommended amputation – telling him they would be impossible to save.
On December 23, he had a three-hour operation to amputate both of his legs.
“Initially when I woke up, I thought my legs were still there and then I came to realise that they weren’t,” Max added.
“I felt down my leg and realised that my legs weren’t there, I asked the nurse and she confirmed that I had my legs amputated.
“She told me that my family was waiting for me and kept on reminding me of them which anchored me.”
After more than a month recovering in hospital, he was able to go home to his 42-year-old wife, Megan Armstrong, – a GoFundMe page has been set up to help fund his medical bills.
An UK woman has recalled how a little-known health condition which was causing her ‘aches and pains’ in her foot led her to become a double amputee.
Samatha Wyles, who lives in the district of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England, is a 57-year-old who now requires a wheelchair to get around.
Initially, her health issues began when she started to feel aches and pains in her foot. What she didn’t know at the time though was that she had developed a condition called Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD).
According to the Mayo Clinic, PAD is a type of atherosclerosis where a build-up of fatty deposits narrow the arteries, therefore reducing blood flow to the arms and/or legs.
Studies have previously shown that PAD can be identified in around 5 percent of citizens aged 60-69 and 15 percent of those who are 70 or older, as per GW Medical Faculty Associates.
Wyles initially ignored her aches but eventually relented in seeing a doctor following a directive from her daughter-in-law.
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Samantha Wyles is a double-amputee (Samantha Wyles)
According to LeicestershireLive, her daughter-in-law had noticed the underside of Wyles’ toes turning black and urged her to seek medical help.
Soon, the woman was referred to a hospital, where another practitioner confirmed that she had developed PAD.
Despite undergoing an angioplasty – a procedure that can insert a stent into an artery to help blood flow more freely – doctors were unable to successfully restore blood flow to Wyles’s foot.
She was told her lower leg would have to be removed and replaced with a prosthetic leg.
Two years after dealing with the loss of her limb, Wyles was diagnosed with PAD again, this time in her other leg. And despite the surgeon’s best efforts, she underwent amputation again.
Wyles is now urging for a better support system to be put in place for those with or who have previously suffered at the hands of PAD.
“If I can give something back I will,” she told LeicesterLive. “I think there needs to be greater support out there for people like me.”
Recently, she signed the UK Vascular Research PPI Registry.
PAD can lead to serious and potentially fatal problems (Getty Stock Image)
Created by Imelda Black, a research assistant at the University of Leicester, the list includes more than 60 people from around the UK with personal experience of vascular conditions like PAD.
“PAD is often a life-changing and life-limiting condition. It’s a common diagnosis, but somehow flies under the radar when we talk about our health,” Black said. “Many people who receive a PAD diagnosis have never even heard of it.
“Our PPI participants use their experience of this painful condition to help researchers understand how best to roll out their projects in a way that gives understandable information to patients.”
Regarding the register, Wyles hopes ‘voicing [her] opinion’ and ‘taking part in research’ will improve things for PAD sufferers in the future.
PAD symptoms vary, but some of the most pressing ones include leg pain when walking, muscle pain or cramping, leg numbness or weakness, and a weak pulse in the limbs.
Muscle pain is likely to range from mild to extreme and may wake you up from sleep and make it difficult to walk or exercise.
Other symptoms that may be present in PAD sufferers include: shiny skin on the legs, slow-growing toenails, hair loss and erectile dysfunction.
If you’re at a higher risk of heart disease or suspect you have PAD, you should book in to see your doctor as soon as possible.
Featured Image Credit: Samantha Wyles/Getty Stock Image
