Unexplainably Walking Away from Deadly Car Crash

December 16, 2023. A day remembered by many living in the rural community of Woolwine, Virginia.        

That night the volunteer fire department and Smith River EMS were dispatched to a car accident 2 miles away. 

High school senior, Lauren Worley and her boyfriend were hit by a drunk driver and pinned in the vehicle. Paramedic Dianna Foley arrived on the scene.

She said, “When I see Lauren, she's not responsive, but she's moaning a little bit. She can't really follow commands at that point, but you can tell there's a massive head injury.” 

Lauren’s mom, Mandy, had an uneasy feeling that night. While checking an app on her phone that gave her daughter’s whereabouts, she got in her car with their youngest daughter, Kendra, and drove to the location. She was stopped by the state patrol. 
“I said, is she, is she dead? and he said, I don't know,” said Mandy. “And I said, I have to put my hands on her. I have to pray over her.”

Kendra called her dad. He was at the scene minutes later with their youngest daughter, Natalie.  

“And I knew when I seen it, she, I knew she was dead,” Chris said. 

The young man who was with Lauren, was able to free himself from the wreckage, while it took first responders over twenty minutes to free Lauren.  Paramedic Foley and team transported her to a medical helicopter a half mile up the road. Chris and Mandy followed.

Paramedic Foley said, “Before we took her out of there, we did promise Mandy to be able to come in. And so she got to hands on, you know, and that's all she wanted. She just wanted to lay hands and pray for her daughter. It was very powerful.”

To many’s surprise, Lauren survived the 20-minute flight to Carilion Medical Center in Roanoke, Virginia. From the ER she was moved to ICU, the next 48 hours would be critical. Trauma nurse Tilly Lewis.  

“Lauren was very critically injured. She had an open skull fracture; she had brain matter coming out of her skull. She was having trouble maintaining the pressures inside of her head. They were getting too high, so we were monitoring that, giving her medication to help manage those. She had several fractures. She was bleeding internally, so we were replacing her blood,” said nurse Lewis. 

“Just the extent of her brain injury was the one thing that stood out the most,” said neurosurgeon Vaibhav Patel. 

Dr. Vaibhav Patel, neurosurgeon, removed part of Lauren’s skull to relieve pressure on her brain. 

“So, from a neurosurgical perspective there's multiple injuries that we consider. So, one is a primary injury, which is what occurred at the time of accident that often is not reversible. There's not a whole lot that I can do to salvage the brain, that's been injured from the impact itself.”

As each medical need arose, Chris posted on social media requesting prayer for Lauren.  
Mandy, a former trauma nurse, continued to trust Jesus for her daughter’s healing. 

Mandy said, “And even though I had so much medical knowledge, and that was a very hard time for me because my faith brain battled my medical brain. But I just kept saying, my God is the great God, and He can heal her.”

Finally in a couple of days the pressure in Lauren’s brain started to decrease and stabilize. She was slowly weaned off medication and two weeks later started regaining consciousness. 

“I was standing beside her, and she had started to move some, and she reached up and she grabbed my hair, and she started twirling my hair. And I was like, oh, that's my Lauren. she is still there,” said Mandy.

Chris said, “Two days later, she's starting to respond to commands. She's squeezing hand on, on command. And she went from not being a candidate for rehab to being an amazing candidate for rehab.”

Lauren was hospitalized for 39 days before being moved to a rehab facility for catastrophic injuries in Charlotte North Carolina.  From there, she continued outpatient rehab at Carilion brain injury center. Nurse Heather Cole.

“I didn't expect her to talk and walk and, I mean, I didn't, I didn't expect it to happen that quickly. She was determined she was going to walk across that stage to get her diploma, and she wanted to go to prom,” said nurse Cole.
And Lauren did.

“I, you know, I wouldn't be here without all the prayers that I’ve received, which I’m so grateful,” said Lauren.

“What has surprised me the most is when I saw her last month, she was as normal as one can be,” said Dr. Patel. “I would not be able to tell that she ever had any brain injury or any, you know, any kind of accident of that kind.”

Over the months, Lauren has also dealt with how she feels about the man who hit her, caused so much suffering, and is now serving time in prison. 

“I could be mad at him if I wanted to be, but you know, what, what would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? That's always what I tell myself. What would Jesus do? He would forgive him. So, I forgive him,” said Lauren. 

“It's definitely been a process to get through. But I'm doing so much better now. For a long time, I wanted to be like, why God? But then I was like, you know, why not?”
Chris said, “It took something this tragic to bring me to my knees, to bring me back to God.” 

“I have to say it is all Jesus. It is 100% Jesus,” said Mandy. “And all we have to do is open our eyes and look to see that God is still a God of miracles. The miracles of the Bible, miracles today. And my daughter is a true testament of the goodness of God and what God still does for us.”