Miracle child: Death — and near death — unite mama bears in time of need

In the Sandell living room, 5-year-old Addi is a whirling dervish of activity, running around and playfully moving her arms up and down while shouting, “I have wings, I can fly!”

The fact a kid Addi’s age has this kind of energy is hardly shocking.

But flashback a little over a year ago, it’s a miracle she’s alive, much less walking.

On Dec. 20, 2022, Katie Sandell, Addi’s mother, had an appointment near Banner Ocotillo in Chandler. While waiting, husband Jeff decided to walk across the street with three of the couple’s kids to look at Christmas lights. Addi, excited to tell her mother about new additions to her Christmas list, got away from the group and bounced in front of an oncoming car.

The impact was violent. Addi was thrown 100 feet.

Katie recalled the prognosis wasn’t good.

“The doctors told us she wouldn’t likely survive and if she did, she’d be a quadriplegic and have to spend the rest of her life in a hospital bed,” Katie said.

Lucky to be alive

Internal decapitation — it’s a horrifying term all by itself, but even more so in the context of an injury to a girl who was 4 at the time.

But that’s how doctors described one of Addi’s injuries to Katie and Jeff.

According to the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, such an injury occurs when the spine is separated from the base of the skull. Seventy percent of internal decapitations result in immediate death.

“Addi’s C1 and C2 vertebrae were completely torn and fragmented,” Katie said. “The doctor had to go and cut out a portion of her rib and make a C1 and C2 vertebrae out of it and fuse it to her spine.”

With a skeletal system still developing, Addi clung to life as those two vertebrae were just flexible enough to take such an impact and not break.

“The doctors told us that those two vertebrae were spongy since she was so young,” Katie said. “Had she been her brother’s age, 8, they would have been more developed, and she would have been dead on arrival.”

In a sign of good things to come, the surgery to repair Addi’s spine, which doctors expected to take anywhere from eight to 10 hours, only took four and half hours to complete.

Getting to the point where such a surgery would be possible in the first place was a challenge, Katie explained.

The first hurdle came in the three days after the accident, where Addi’s goal was just to survive while under the supervision of staff at Banner Children’s at Desert Hospital.

“They told us that the first 72 hours after a severe traumatic brain injury is the red zone,” Katie said. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re watching all the numbers. You’re watching every movement. You’re watching everything. We didn’t know if she was going to make it past that first 72 hours. It was step by step.”

The day after surgery, the doctors contemplated how they were going to take Addi off life support and whether she would be able to breathe on her own. The doctors warned the Sandells that it might take a few tries.

But Addi wasn’t even waiting for the first.

“Within minutes of them telling us, she started trying to breathe over the life support machine,” Katie said. “There were no problems, they pulled the tube, and she was breathing just fine on her own.”

In all, Addi spent nearly six weeks at the hospital. Aside from the TBI and a broken neck, Addi also suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs.

Addi’s body was broken, but her indomitable spirit remained intact.

A friend in time of need

A month before Addi’s accident, a tragedy in the community caught the Sandells’ attention when Trey Liermann, the son of City Councilmember Amber Liermann, passed away at age 15.

“We heard about it and decided to reach out personally to Amber and her family,” Katie said. “Jeff and I were overwhelmed with how it must feel to lose a child.”

Amber was thankful for the Sandells.

“They reached out to our family in such a difficult time in such a loving and consistent way,” Amber said. “When I say consistent, I don’t mean that they just called and said, ‘so sorry for your loss.’”

Over the next few weeks, Katie talked to Amber daily and the Sandells often visited the Liermanns. Sometimes, it was only to bring dinner, others it was to offer words of encouragement and comfort. A bond formed, especially between Amber and Katie.

Little did the two know that one day in the very near future, the shoe would be on the other foot.

When Amber heard about Addi’s dire condition on that fateful December day, she reached out to Katie and asked if she could come to the hospital to be with the family, which surprised Katie to some degree.

“I was still worried about Amber,” Katie said. “Her loss was still so recent, and I was concerned that the situation with Addi might be too much for her to handle.”

Nonetheless, Amber stayed with Addi, praying and singing for the girl for two hours and sat with Jeff and Katie during the surgery.

“So here she was, this mother grieving her own son and was standing in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit holding someone’s hand who she’d just met,” Katie recalled.

Amber was glad to offer her support.

“To have their family almost immediately experience a tragedy after ours, that connection was built,” Amber said. “I reached out to them in a similar manner that they’d reached out to me.

“It was this very organic, natural connection that I feel God helped provide for the both of us.”

The shared experience cemented the bond between the two families.

“We had no idea whether she’d survive,” Amber said. “I think the reality of her parents understanding what we’d been through pretty intimately and really knowing the gravity of loss and for them to find themselves in the same situation we were in a month earlier.

“They’d been there for us when we were going through some dark, dark times.”

To offer a friend comfort during their time in need was therapeutic for Amber.

“It’s just been such a journey of healing, faith and joy to watch Addi’s recovery,” Amber said. “It’s such an unimaginable place to be in life and as a parent and so to help any other parent facing a tragedy is all I can ask for.”

Amber and Katie still talk every day, even if it’s only by text.

“We message each other all hours and the day and night,” Amber said.

Messages from beyond

Health issues had long been a part of the Sandell family’s story.

Jeff, after a botched spinal tap, had long suffered severe back issues. At the time of Addi’s injury, things seemed to be looking up for the family as Jeff had just recovered and was headed back to work.

And, unfortunately, the accident in Chandler wasn’t the first time Addi had been in the hospital for a serious condition, Jeff recalled.

“She got real sick when she was 3 and a half and had a high fever — the kind where we had to take her to the emergency room,” Jeff said. “Her fever was approaching 105. It was pretty scary.”

It’s hard to know what exactly Addi caught.

“It may have been the flu,” Jeff said. “But her little immune system wasn’t handling it well.”

The real shock came when Addi recovered and told Jeff and a friend about a visit she’d had with “young Santa Claus.”

“I asked her, ‘Young Santa Claus?’” And she said, ‘Yeah, Santa Claus, but younger. When I was sick, Santa came and read me a book that he brought me.”

Jeff asked a few more questions and “she described Jesus and she saw a picture of Jesus and pointed to it and said, ‘That’s him.’”

And soon after being struck by a car and recovering from the surgery, Jeff said Addi started talking about her visit with young Santa again.

“One of the first things she told me when she could put together a coherent sentence was, ‘Daddy, remember the man who read me the story? It was him. It was the same man. He’s all white and that’s his color. That’s God’s color.”

Jeff is a religious man, but even he was caught off guard.

“I didn’t know what to think. I know about Jesus and fully believe in Christ, but I didn’t know whether to believe it or not,” he said. “But when you hear that from a 5-year-old, you don’t know how to process it.”

The concern as Jeff explained it was about their daughter telling these stories to other people. They weren’t sure whether they were a result of the TBI or if there’s something more to it.

“You don’t know whether to ask more questions, or tell her not to go around saying this too much, or just only say this around mom and dad for a while,” Jeff said.

Eventually, Jeff and Katie decided to just leave it be. They didn’t want to give her direction either way and would let Addi say what she was going to say.

“Later, she described she walked a field and there were all these flowers around that smelled really good,” Jeff said. “We showed her 100 pictures of flowers, trying to see if they matched, but they never did. And she said she saw people singing and playing music — all these crazy things. It was wild.”

Jeff said all these descriptions are beyond the comprehension of a 5-year-old.

“I don’t want people to think I’m a kook, but I think I believe her,” Jeff said. “She described a gate that’s made from glass that you can see through. In the Bible, it talks about the gates of heaven being made of pearl and translucent.

“We’ve never taught her about that, and we’ve never got into that with her. How would she know these things at 5?”

When Addi was unconscious in the hospital during those first 72 hours, she later told her parents she had a visit with a boy she said told her “to go back because her mommy and daddy would be very sad,” Jeff said.

Jeff explained the connection came when Addi told them the boy she spoke to told her he hadn’t been up there too long, and “his mommy was sad too and that their mommies are friends now.”

The descriptions made enough sense to Amber that she saw a connection.

“Addie has talked about my son on a couple of different occasions,” Amber said. “It was incredible. She was able to describe my son. Addi was 4 and I don’t know if she’d ever met Trey.

“But when she woke from her surgery, she was talking about Trey. To think that Trey gave her any kind of strength through that situation was so beautiful.”

A source of inspiration

Regardless of what people may think of Addi’s near-death experiences, the fact the girl is walking remains a miracle in and of itself.

Addi’s miraculous recovery made her a favorite at the hospital, Katie said.

“The nurses were arguing over who got to look over Addi,” she said. “Every person who came into contact with her and knew what happened in that accident, knew they were looking at a miracle.”

At 5 years old, Addi is an inspirational figure with perhaps a big future. She is discussing a contract with Trinity Broadcasting Network, a religious media group interested in telling her story.

“We’re letting Addi’s lawyer read over the contract,” Katie said.

Yes. You read that right. A 5-year-old has a lawyer.

For the record, she turns 6 Feb. 11.

Addi has needed legal services because the negotiation of the $500,000 settlement with the company who insured the woman who hit her. The state gave Addi long-term care insurance and claimed $150,000 of the original amount. Of that settlement, $6,000 went into an account for Addi that only she can access, or if she dies, the state gets the money.

The rest of the money sits in an account under the parents’ and Addi’s names, which the parents can only access when they are purchasing something for Addi’s wellbeing.

“We have to provide a written explanation for every expense,” Katie said. “The state does audits.”

As part of the settlement, Addi also has a minivan in her name. The vehicle allows Addi to travel in comfort in ways a normal car couldn’t.

Yep. The 5-year-old has a car and a lawyer.

While Addi can walk and has youthful bursts of energy from time to time, she still has physical limitations. Katie must bring a walker and wheelchair where they go.

One time, Katie got a little too confident and decided to leave them at home on a trip to the mall.

“After about 30 minutes, Addi was done,” Katie said.

The fact that Addi has her own van is a source of humor for everyone. Addi even gets in on the joke sometimes, Katie said.

“If one of her siblings acts up, she’ll remind them, ‘This is my van, and you better behave!’”

Forgiveness

For many people, it would not be an easy feat to forgive the woman who was sitting behind the wheel the day Addi was struck.

She was in her 70s and was distracted, looking at her phone at the time of the accident.
“We prayed on how to best handle that situation,” Jeff said. “While I was mad that it happened, I realized there was blame on both sides. That woman didn’t try to hit my daughter. Addi ran out in front of her.

“I didn’t want that woman’s life to be ruined.”

Katie added that it’s hard to truly hate someone who is repentant in such a situation.

“She totally took accountability for it and gave us her insurance information,” she said.

After much thought, Jeff and Katie decided they were going to focus their efforts on getting the best deal they could from the insurance company. Both knew they were fighting for their daughter’s future.

While Addi has recovered a great deal from that troubling day, she still has physical and cognitive therapy sessions to attend and will be dealing with some form of a disability stemming from the accident for the rest of her life.

“I feel sorry for that woman,” Katie said. “She’s going to play that whole thing through her mind over and over for the rest of her life.”

Jeff said he was satisfied with the way things worked out.

“I’m glad there weren’t any charges pressed,” Jeff said. “I’ve never heard anything back, but I have reached out to her through the police to let her know that we didn’t have hard feelings.”