A horrific accident, a broken body, and a remarkable return to running
A DyeStat story by Dave Devine
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The nights were the worst.
That’s when the doubts and fears crept from the edges of the hospital ICU room, crowding out hope and optimism. When nothing seemed clear, no outcomes promised. When the uncertain prognosis and haunting brain images merged with chirping sensors and beeping monitors to form a chorus of despair. Those interminable hours after the accident when Lily Whelan still lay in a coma, and her father, Bob, unfurled his frame each evening on a converted sofa bed and attempted to salvage a few hours of sleep.
Crowded against a sixth-floor window overlooking Denver, he would adjust his bedding, shift positions, and contemplate the bustling city below. He’d listen to sirens. Follow traffic patterns. Watch distant airplanes climb or descend on their designated routes. He would try to still a mind racing through a million possibilities.
For years, ever since his wife passed away, it had been just Bob and Lily. Father and daughter. The anesthesiologist and the high school runner. An inseparable team. And here they were again, just the two of them in this room, only now Bob wondered how much of Lily was actually there.
And he felt helpless — despite all his medical training — to assist his broken daughter. He could only watch as Lily, the girl he’d playfully nicknamed “Mowgli” or “Little Britches” from The Jungle Book movie, convulsed and shuddered under a tangle of wires. Her arms and legs, which only days earlier had carried her to a state track meet podium, now twitching randomly, uncontrollably.
There was no way of knowing how all of this would turn out. In those dark hours, sleepless and six stories above Denver, there were only questions:
Will she ever really wake up? Will she walk again? Will she speak?
Will I ever get my sweet Lily back?
Life Flight
It should have been the conclusion to a celebratory week.
On June 26, 2021, the track and field team from Battle Mountain High in Edwards, Colo., had wrapped up a successful Colorado 4A state meet. The event, typically contested in late May, had been pushed deeper into the summer by COVID delays. Coaches and athletes were eager for a well-earned break.
Lily, then a sophomore, had taken 14th in the 4A 1,600 meters and run a leg on Battle Mountain’s runner-up 4×800 relay. It had been a great, positive weekend, with summer looming. As soon as the meet was over…
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