the ordinary pursuit: Launa's story

Launa Nielsen was headed back to camp with her friend Jordan,

after going repelling with their church group. They had gotten

separated from the group and were making their way back

to the main trail. Launa focused on following Jordan

when she rolled her ankle—and began to fall.

The cliff that she tumbled down had a straight drop off

and then gradually became less steep

“I couldn’t stop myself,

I had to let myself fall,

I hit my head on a tree trunk,

that’s what stopped me”

A few yards from where she stopped,

there was a second cliff about 100 ft tall.

“I didn’t realize my body
wasn’t working together,
I thought blood was everywhere,
I thought my head was
going to explode”

With the pain so excruciating that she couldn’t think,

Launa felt herself drifting away.

Jordan somehow got to where Launa lay, put her head on
her lap and began to pray vocally in a voice that to Launa,
was very heavenly, peaceful, and serene.

“It was at that point where
I had to decide. Before then
I wasn’t in the right mind,
I didn’t realize I wasn’t breathing.

It wasn’t an okay thing
to give up, but it was my
choice whether to do so or not.
I know that that is something
that Heavenly Father did
for me. He lifted a portion
of the pain so that I was able
to do my part to survive—if I wanted to.
It didn’t take away everything.
I still had trouble breathing.
I still had so much pain in my head,
but it he eased it enough to finally breath”

As soon as she decided to try and breath, she noticed that

the Jordans voice was not as angelic as it had been before.

“I can’t describe the pain to
you that was in my head.
Something happened as
soon as I hit my head.
I couldn’t think correctly
until Jordan came down.
that’s when things were lifted up.
when I came out of my own little
world her voice became
really real—and very worrisome”

Jordan needed to go get help but was torn because she didn’t

want to leave Launa alone.

”I wanted her to stay. It was
hard for me and hard for her,
but I knew that she needed
to do it. My sister passed
away when she was little,
I had never met her, but that’s
why I fought, I could feel her
there with me”

As help came Launa continued going in and out of consciousness,
hearing small portions of the commotion. A nurse had been at camp

and was one of the first to the scene. She kept everyone calm

and tried to give Launa breathing aids.

“We’ve been here too long,
We’ve been here 42 minutes,
we need to get her off the mountain”

Throughout this time, Launa could not open her eyes.

The only sense she had was her hearing. She heard chainsaws

and trees falling as they tried to make a path for the helicopters to get to her.

"It was getting really hard,
it literally takes every fiber of
your being, you don’t realize
how much a breath of air takes
and we do it every second.
I began to have thoughts like
'Why am I even doing this?'
and 'why not just take the easy way out?'.
I couldn't inhale as fast at I could exhale.
I was losing hope, getting frustrated,
and it was dragging on.

“That’s when I heard ‘Get the Oil’
and my mind was opened that’s
when I knew it was going to work out,
that the Lord was with me and was
going to help me fight this”

and she blacked out again

Getting Launa off the mountain was the biggest challenge.

They couldn’t move her because they weren’t sure if she

had any broken bones, there were complications getting

a helicopter to pick her up as well. Finally a third helicopter

came all the way from Arizona to pick her up.

When she came to in the helicopter she heard calm voices

around her. It registered that that she wasn’t on the mountain

anymore but she wanted to signal that the pain in head was

still unbearable and breathing was still difficult.

“I realized I couldn’t move
my hands or open my eyes.
That was one of the most
disappointing and frustrating
moments in my life—realizing
that I couldn’t even do that for
myself. I can't even explain to
you what it is like to be paralyzed.
All I wanted was to move my
hands to my neck and sign that I
couldn't breath. I was angry at God.
Disappointed to be in a state
where I couldn’t even open my eyes.”

The medics gave her a Glasgow score of 3 which indicates

deep unconciousness. 85-90% of people given a score of 4

or lower die two days later or remain in a vegetable state.

But Launa woke up.

And when she did the biggest hint that everything was going

to be fine was that she was no longer paralyzed. Though she

had regained partial mobility, she lost something perhaps more dear.

“my mom was there and I didn’t
even make the initial connection
that that was my mother”

“waking up and there are
all those cards, and memories,
and people that say hi…

and you have no idea who they are.

I felt loved, and that people were
worried, but I didn’t know
who they were.

I felt stupid,

Humiliated,

Embarrassed”

They told her that things would come back as she interacted with her

peers and got back into a normal routine.

Therapy was hard, She had to relearn how to walk. Though she

hadn’t broken any bones, her body could not remember how to

walk so they started with the principles of walking. She progressed

from crawling, being in wheel care, to using a walker.
Finally, a month later, she was able to walk on her own which
was a feat she conquered pretty quickly compared to others in similar situations

“That was definitely a blessing.
I had to be thankful step by step

because I was making progress
I wasn’t’ supposed to be making."

though she made tremendous progress
in her physical restraints, trying to regain her
memory was a challenge that took a bit longer

“when they put a chart in front
of you with a hammer and ruler and

you can’t name those things,
it’s really frustrating”

The hard thing with brain injuries is that no two are the same so

they can’t say ‘you’ll going to make x amount of progress this year.

Because of these struggles, Launa was academically unprepared to

stay in a public school. The only thing the schools in her hometown

near Las Vegas could offer was to put her into Special Education.

Fearing that doing so would hinder rather than help her get back

up to a normal level academically, her parents decided to move to

Provo where she could be put in a private school and be sure to not

use the accident as a crutch that would keep her back from being

the best she could be.

After being told by doctors that her memory would come back

as she interacted with her friends and at school, Launa was

extremely reluctant to leave

“I was so mad at my parents
for making me leave, I wanted to

learn more about myself, my
past, and my family. Looking back

though, that really was the
best thing they could have done.
Myfather left his practice in

Vegas and came to Provo without a job,

and miraculously the BYU Health
Center was hiring. My parents

had to be separated while they
sold the house. They sacrificed

so much for me and all I could
think of at the time was how pissed

I was at them”

The move was a really frightening thing for her. She had a new school,

she had to make new friends in a place where everyone was really smart.

Place that on top of her circumstances and you’ll be able to picture

just how vulnerable she was.

“My vocabulary was really low,
and it’s hard to judge where
I was at because you can only
be tested on so much, and you
just don’t know what you don’t know

I knew my alphabet,

I had to relearn how to tie my shoes.

I began to write my numbers backwards,

Though most my basic math skills stuck.

It was hit and miss.”

The first year was the hardest. Launa had constantly faced the

question of “do I just not know that, or does everyone not know that?”

She began the process of reclaiming her memory and a learning new

and old things every single day.

“I would remember certain words
that were connected, so I would

say things like ‘what clock is it?’
when I meant ‘what time is it?’”

three years after the accident, Launa found herself still learning

what she had forgotten. In a history class where they were taking

a diagnostic test, so that the teacher could gauage where to go

with this lessons the rest of the semester.

“He had us read what we thought the

answers were to each questions. I knew

my turn was coming up soon and was

terrified. I got a question about 9/11 and

I didn’t even know about it. It wasn’t a

fun situation, people laughed, but they

didn’t know my circumstances.”

When Launa explained to me her process to recovery she said that

some things came to her as a memory, and some things were totally new

again. It was much like reading a book for the second time, you

remember a few plot points but the details are fuzzy until you read them again.

Soccer was one of the things that came back to her pretty quick.

It was through a soccer league that she joined that she met some

friends and gained the courage and confidence to finish high

school at a public school.

Launa has come impressively and miraculously far since her accident.

It’s no longer something that she is fighting every day.

She has noticed that now she is able to work really hard at something

to complete it.

“I learned that I could do pretty
much anything from working so hard and

enduring it for so long, simply because I

had no other choice but to do so.”

“A lot of people don’t notice it until they

become a little closer with me and start

to notice there is something a little off.

I not fully aware, or maybe I don’t understand

random simple things, but it’s not

something that I could be picked out

of crowd for”

There were some things that were just plain old different

about Launa after the whole ordeal. The progress she has made

and the person she has become has been inspiring.

“I was really OCD about things like folding

my clothes, or sharing my things, but after

my accident it was like a I had a personality

change, I was much more laid back.

Part of it was the injury to my head,

but going through something so hard just

made me realized what’s really important

There are a ton of people out there with trials,

accidents, strokes, age, and other

difficulties. We don’t often take the time

to recognize what trials others are going

through.

“I see a new light. A new light on life and

on what people are and their meaning.

They are human, they are going through

real trials. I have a new outlook on what

relationships with people should be like

and what is truly meaningful in life,

It just became easier to treat people better.”