KETCHIKAN — The smile of Morgan Enright lit up The Point art cafe on Saturday evening as she exchanged hugs and conversation with people who’d come to welcome her home to Ketchikan and Southeast Alaska.
The festive balloons, home-baked desserts and big “Welcome Home” sign created by Angie Taggart’s students at Fawn Mountain Elementary School suggested the energetic 22-year-old surrounded by friends and family had returned after a long time away.
Which was accurate, in a way.
Enright’s 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 — and be preparing to return to limited work as a heavy equipment operator — is, as she says, “miraculous.”
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 “pretty steady,” Enright said.
“It was just the first couple of weeks there where people didn’t know whether I was going to live or die,” she told the Daily News this past week.
“Everybody who I’ve worked with has said it’s miraculous,” Enright said. “Even the workman’s (compensation representatives), when I talked with them … a couple of weeks ago, they said they were not expecting me to go back to work for at least two years.”
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.
“The last 4 to 5 years, I’ve been working road construction as a heavy equipment operator,” she said, adding that she was based out of Wrangell mostly.
“I’m on the travel crew, so I’m where the jobs are,” Enright said. “I’ve been all over Prince of Wales Island. … I just go to where the work is.”
On the morning of April 8, Enright was flying for work from Wrangell to Angoon aboard a Cessna 206 floatplane operated by Sunrise Aviation.
According to a preliminary report released by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Sunrise pilot complained of clouds and planned an alternate route.
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.
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.
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.
She underwent surgery on her left leg, and, by April 21, had been stabilized enough to be moved to Harborview’s trauma acute care wing.
Physical and occupational therapy began. By early May, she was able to end dialysis, and start eating ice chips and soft foods.
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.
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.
The process toward walking again wasn’t easy, Enright said.
“Craig Hospital stands out to me, just because I wanted to be walking from the point that I was stuck in the wheelchair and couldn’t even get out of my wheelchair or bed,” she said. “They got me walking in the two and a half months that I was there. Hard work. … I was like amazed how hard it would be — it really was — to walk after you haven’t been doing it for a few months.”
In late July, Enright transferred to QLI — Quality Living Inc. — a residential rehabilitation program in Omaha, Nebraska, that focuses on brain and spinal cord injuries.
Enright’s physical, occupational and speech therapies, in addition to vocational therapy, continued at QLI.
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.
A story about Enright on QLI’s website said the Southeast Alaska assessment included “realistic workplace tasks under true-to-life circumstances.
“The ensuing assessments judged Morgan’s physical capability entering and exiting equipment command seats, as well as the degree of cognitive support Morgan would need to complete complex tasks,” the QLI story continued.
As Enright said: “She got a sense of what I do at work.”
When Enright returned to Alaska this month, she’d be able to return to work, “slowly at first, with more responsibility coming after time,” according to the story.
Enright said the plan has her starting with up to three to four hours of work and then taking breaks.
“I’m going to head back into (equipment operations), and just see how it is and if I can do it well,” she said. “I 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.”
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 “get going.” She’d prefer to continue improving and not need to spend more time in rehabilitation centers.
“The teams are amazing, they do some really good work,” she said. “I hope I don’t have to be back for really any other reason other than to say ‘hi’ and to visit. But I might have to.”
At present, Enright said she has a brace on her left leg and she experiences some nerve pain.
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.
“It’s going to be a couple years process,” Enright said.
Klein told the Daily News that Enright would continue to schedule rehabilitation appointments with staff in the Lower 48 for at least another month.
A theme of conversation during Saturday’s 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’ve provided for Enright.
“I’ve really had an amazing team the whole way through, whether it was at Craig Hospital or QLI — or Harborview, which I don’t remember much of,” Enright had said earlier in the week. “I was at (Harborview) yesterday for a doctor’s appointment and I got to meet quite a few people who were on my team in the ICU, which, of course, I don’t remember, but they were just so happy that I came to say ‘Hi.’ And I was, ‘Well, of course I would. I’m up and about and I’m here. … I’m living because of you guys, probably.’”
While talking with this reporter, Enright’s voice was bright and spirit determined. While focused on the future, she’s keenly aware of her progress to date.
“Nobody really expected it to come along this fast,” Enright said.
This story originally appeared in the Ketchikan Daily News and is republished here with permission.
