UI Children’s Hospital Kid Captain 2010 – Maleah McCool

Two years ago, Maleah McCool was airlifted to University of Iowa Children’s Hospital, close to death from injuries she suffered in a horrific car crash. She had head and brain injuries, a ruptured bowel, lung damage, and numerous broken bones including almost every bone in her face, her pelvis, right ankle and leg, and left wrist. A damaged kidney was later removed. From the moment she arrived, UI Children’s Hospital specialists worked as a team to save her life and repair her broken body. At first, doctors gave her only a slim chance of survival; but, to her family’s relief and joy, no one ever gave up. Remembers her mother, Tami McCool, “Every single person fought to keep her alive and did everything in their power to save her.” One physician, who was not on call, returned to the hospital after hearing her age and learning the extent of her injuries. Maleah spent a month at UI Children’s Hospital, staying in the pediatric intensive care unit for much of the time in a medically induced coma that gave her traumatized brain a chance to heal and letting her doctors and nurses work on her other injuries. After a month, still showing only slight improvement, Maleah was moved to a rehab facility closer to home in Waterloo. There, she had to re-learn to walk and talk and endure hours of painful physical therapy. With tutoring, Maleah was able to make up the time she missed at school and join her classmates the next school year. Today, except for some short-term memory issues …