Putting a Shattered Life - and Body - Back Together

by Mulligan Stu on May 13, 2008 12:02 PM EDT in News

Min Youn Kim (l) and Grace Woo
(Photo: Duramed Futures Tour)

The weekly newsletter from the Duramed Futures Tour includes the gripping tale of Min Young Kim's brush with death, her friendship with fellow Tour player Grace Woo, and her difficult recovery from a horrific automobile crash one year ago this week.

The morning after the completion of last year's El Paso tournament, Kim - a native of Korea living in California - got up early and hit the road for the long drive home. About an hour outside of El Paso, she dozed off at the wheel. Her vehicle flipped six times, leaving her suspended upside down in her seat, held in place by the seat belt, waiting for help.

First, the ambulance and paramedics arrived. Then, the car had to be lifted and maneuvered by rescue workers for paramedics to pry Kim from the vehicle. And then, a helicopter arrived to airlift the golfer from the wreckage.

Her injuries were severe:

She had sustained two fractured knees, a broken bone in her lower right leg, a broken right ankle, severe internal injuries, a severely shattered left forearm and hand and dislocated thoracic vertebrae. The injuries would result in eight surgeries, including three to remove a large section of her damaged intestines. A respirator helped her breathe as her journey that day ended in an Intensive Care Unit at El Paso's Thomason Hospital.

Grace Woo, who befriended Kim when Kim was 16 and Woo 14, was still in El Paso when she heard about the accident. She rushed to the hospital and spent the next week there, serving as interpretor between the doctors and Kim's parents.

Treatment was needed quickly and Woo suddenly went from being a golfer thinking about putts and club selection, to trying to help Kim's parents understand such concerns as where surgical pins were needed in her friend's injured legs.

"I kept crying and choking up, and for me to translate this kind of information for her parents was unbelievably difficult," said Woo ...

Woo says she "blamed herself a lot" for the accident. She and Kim had stayed up late talking the night before, then Kim got up early to make the long drive back to California on not enough sleep. Woo tried to talk her friend into making the long drive in two days, but Kim just wanted to get home. And now, the unthinkable had happened.

After a couple weeks of unconciousness, Kim woke up. Eventually, she was able to begin rehab.

Once Kim's abdominal incisions had begun to heal, she began the long process of learning to walk again. The first step was to practice bending her knees. Even a five-degree bend "felt like torture." Kim had to undergo more surgery to properly bend her injured knees. Her lower body was numbed and she was placed into a device that bent and unbent her knees 10 hours a day.

Kim is home how, having progressed from using a walker to using a cane to being able to drive again.

Kim's dreams of a professional golf career are gone, but hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hospital bills remain. She's thought of going to pharmacy school.

"Maybe later, I can play golf for fun," she said. "But for now, I am happy for good health. [Before the accident] when I was healthy, sometimes I didn't give my best effort. [During] all that time I was in the hospital, that's what I regretted the most - not giving all I had every single day when I had the chance to do it."

Kim is working on her English, but Woo served as translator during the phone conversations with Futures Tour communications director Lisa Mickey that led to this article. Mickey concluded the article this way:

"I'm from a different country, but it didn't matter," said Kim. "People cared. People tried to help."

And then Kim took the telephone and, in careful English, said what she has wanted to say for a year since her accident: "I just want to say thanks."

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