BUTTE — A May 19 traffic crash was so bad that 28-year Kaci Wenger of Butte spent a month in a coma, and then, what some people describe as a miracle suddenly happened.
“My daughter was told by the doctors that they were just going to make her comfortable, that she probably wouldn’t wake up, so she just woke up,” said Kaci’s grandmother, Becky Toivonen.
After five weeks in a coma, Kaci woke up in a Salt Lake City hospital bed where she was taken by helicopter after being involved in a rollover crash on Interstate 90 and was ejected from the car and left on the interstate unconscious with more than a dozen broken bones.
Kaci claims she died in the crash and was met by angels.
“They told me that it wasn’t my time and they were going to send me back and I asked why, and they said I need to be there for my kids and raise my kids,” said Kaci.
On July 26 she was reunited with her nine-month-old daughter Austin and her five-year-old son Noah. The trooper who investigated the crash was there for her homecoming. He said it was one of the worst crashes he had seen and is amazed she survived.
“It was a miracle, I would say, that she’s here today and doing as well as she is today. It’s awesome to see that,” said Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Thomas Renz.
In the dark days after the crash, Kaci’s mother said she never lost hope.
“Talking to her, even through the coma, her dad and I both did, playing her favorite show “Friends,” music, talking to her, singing to her,” said Kaci’s mother Tammy Fisk.
They also credit support from around the world.
“Prayer from every place and I do believe the only thing that saved my granddaughter was the power of prayer,” said Toivonen.
Though Kaci’s recovery will be long and difficult, she counts herself very lucky.
“Most people don’t, when they come out of a coma, they’re not okay. They can’t talk, they can’t use their limbs fully and anything like that, so it’s amazing to me that I can even move and talk and do all the stuff,” said Wenger.
Her mother added, “The only word that comes to mind is grateful, just so grateful, that is what my heart is filled with, you know, that’s the word, is grateful.”
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