April 27, 2011, is a day that Tuscaloosa will never forget. For Chelsea Thrash, it’s a the day she almost lost her life.
Chelsea, a junior majoring on biology, said that she had heard about the threats of tornadoes in the South, but she didn’t think the warnings were relative to the Tuscaloosa area. “I didn’t really think much of it in terms of Tuscaloosa because if you are from Alabama, you always hear that tornadoes don’t go through cities – they go through the outskirts of the county,” Chelsea said. She had planned to go to campus that afternoon with her boyfriend, Sloan. At the last minute, she decided to stay at his apartment to study for her upcoming chemistry final.
Alone at her boyfriend’s apartment, Chelsea realized the sky was getting darker and knew something was wrong. She said, “I turned the TV on and was watching James Spann and he was just like ‘If you are in Tuscaloosa, get to your safe place now’. I went to the most interior part of the apartment, which was the bathroom.” Not five minutes later, the tornado hit the complex. Chelsea said it sounded like “a jet engine in your room… really loud and overwhelming.” She continued, saying, “The atmospheric pressure was so intense that I couldn’t move. I never had that feeling before, so I knew things were bad. And then I saw the door fly off its hinges like it was nothing. It was then that I blacked out.”
About twenty to thirty minutes later, Chelsea woke up in the middle of the courtyard, staring up at the sky. She said, “I thought ‘Did that really just happen?’ I turned my head to the right and where there should be a two-level apartment was just rubble.” She found her phone, which was just an arms-length away, and called her mother. Chelsea said, “For some miraculous reason, the call went through. What my Mom thought was going to be a call to check in with her turned out to be ‘Mom, I’m alive but I can’t feel my legs and the apartment is gone.'”
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As people started pouring out of the other apartments in the area to assess the damage, some rushed over to assist Chelsea. She recalled, “The first person that came up to me was a girl that I graduated high school with. She was trying to keep me calm and alert. Then a man came up who was trained in the Army and he was doing his Army tricks to calm me down. Then, Derek showed up.” Derek DeBruin and his wife, Susan, lived in the same apartment complex as Chelsea’s boyfriend. Despite losing their own apartment, the couple focused on helping those who were injured. Derek used his wilderness rescue training to stabilize Chelsea, even making a makeshift stretcher out of a dining room table. Chelsea said, “Four or five men picked the table up with me on it and they were going to walk me to Mayer Electric. When they got to the road, there was a man in a pickup waiting and he had several other people he was going to take to triage, a place where they could figure out the extent of my injuries, so they loaded me in the back of the pickup. From there, I went to DCH.”
Upon arriving at the hospital, Chelsea was sent in for an emergency MRI where the extent of her injuries was discovered. She had dislocated her spine and broken her L1 vertebrae. As they looked at her scans, the doctors realized that they couldn’t give her the proper care. From DCH, they loaded Chelsea into an ambulance and sent her to UAB. The usual hour long trip took two and a half hours due to heavy traffic.
On the morning of April 28, Chelsea underwent a ten-hour surgery to fix her spine. Chelsea said, “I had a spinal fusion. They also went in on my side to pick out all the bone fragments and put it in a bracket and seal the bracket where my L1 vertebrae would be.” During the surgery, the doctors found other complications, including a lacerated spleen and a punctured diaphragm. Chelsea said, “Once doctors came out to relay how the surgery went, the surgeon told my parents ‘We did everything we can. She is alive and stable, but she will never walk again.'”
On top of healing physically, Chelsea also began trying to comprehend emotionally what had happened. “I think the tornado was a lot harder on me psychologically and emotionally than it was physically,” she said. “The biggest hurdle was the survivor’s guilt. Why was my life spared over so many other people?” One of the lives taken that day was Chelsea’s sorority sister, Melanie Nicole Mixon. “With Nicole only being a few doors down from me, you just don’t know why. And it is hard to understand because there isn’t a way to,’ Chelsea said.
Throughout the struggles, Chelsea decided that she was going to walk again despite her surgeons’ grim prognosis. “Oh, it wasn’t a question for me,” Chelsea said with a laugh. “There was no question in my mind that I was going to walk again. I have that type of personality that I am going to prove you wrong. You say I can’t do something, and I will prove you wrong.”
Once she was released from the hospital, Chelsea moved to a rehab clinic where she began the slow and painful process of learning to walk again. Chelsea said, “My first day of rehab, it took 5 people to sit me up. I was just in a bed for two weeks, so it all started just being able to sit up, change my gown. It was a big milestone.” Once Chelsea was able to site up, she began using a machine that pushed her into a standing position. “The first time we did it, I passed out after 5 seconds. The next day, I was able to do 30 seconds. The next day was a minute. From there, it was taking a little step and then walking a little further.”
Throughout rehab, Chelsea’s main goal was to be able to walk to class on the first day of school. On August 24 – almost four months to the day after the tornado – Chelsea walked to class with the help of a bright pink cane. She reached her goal of being able to walk after an intense 12 weeks of physical therapy, defying all odds.
Now that Chelsea is on the road to a full recovery, she hopes that one day she will be able to start a scholarship at Alabama to assist others. Chelsea hopes that if the scholarship is set up, a student who was personally affected by the tornado would receive it. “It’s definitely something that I have thought of,” Chelsea said with a smile. “I would want it to be an open scholarship and not for a certain major, because tornadoes don’t care if you are a boy or a girl and it doesn’t care if you want to teach or if you want to learn music.” She also hopes to one day be a motivational speaker for people with similar injuries to hers in hopes of encouraging them with her story of recovery.
I have known Chelsea since I joined Gamma Phi Beta in the fall of 2010. Not only is she one of the most genuine people I have had the pleasure of meeting; she is a true example of a role model. Her strength and her positive mentality simply amaze me each and every day. She always has a smile on her face, and she can make your day brighter by finding ways to make you laugh and smile along with her. She is everything that a campus celebrity should be and I am so grateful to call her one of my friends.
If you would like to donate to Chelsea’s medical fund, please visit the Chelsea Thrash Medical Relief Fund page on Facebook.