Rachel's journey: Young car crash patient makes complete and miraculous recovery

May 10—The scene of the violent automobile crash that left Rachel Richie in an intensive-care unit on New Year's Day 2020 is no longer the accident trap it once was.

For that matter, Rachel is no longer the young woman she used to be, either.

The main lanes of U.S. Highway 287 now safely cross over Walnut Grove Road via an overpass after the Texas Department of Transportation opened a new interchange last month. But a year and a half ago, the intersection on the eastern side of Midlothian was a construction site and a notorious traffic impediment on the highway, with impatient drivers often having to go through three or four traffic light cycles in peak hours. It was at that location where Rachel's life was forever altered.

At the time a recent Heritage High School graduate, Rachel suffered multiple broken bones and a traumatic brain injury while riding in a car that was hit by a red-light runner. Following several surgeries at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, she underwent months of grueling rehabilitation.

But almost a year and a half later, Rachel Richie has made an almost 100-percent recovery.

"Sometimes the rods in my back bother me," she said, "but only when it's cold or there's like barometric pressure ... I'm like a weatherman now."

Rachel is a former homecoming queen and was captain of the Jaguars volleyball team that reached the 2018 Class 4A state semifinals. She was home from attending Blinn College for the holidays when the accident happened.

Rachel remembers nothing of the accident or of the days following. What she knows of it is what doctors and family members have told her.

According to reports, Olivia Richie, Rachel's sister, was driving a Jeep Wrangler along Walnut Grove Road with Rachel and a friend, Emily Pena, as passengers. The vehicle was about to turn left onto U.S. 287 when a Ford F-150 pickup truck ran a red light and T-boned the Jeep. The pickup driver was ticketed.

All three girls inside the Jeep were trapped and had to be extricated from the mangled vehicle. It took more than 30 minutes to extract Rachel, who was in the backseat gravely injured. The other two girls were treated at the hospital and released.

"They couldn't find me at first because I was under the driver's seat," Rachel said. "Nobody could see me. I was just told recently that I didn't have a pulse, so they weren't going to help me at first. They were focusing on my sister and our friend. But my sister was adamant that they got to me first.

"How do you comprehend that you're considered dead?"

Rachel was flown by air ambulance to Methodist Dallas with a collapsed lung and fractures to her skull, jaw, nose, clavicle, pelvis and one of her thoracic vertebrae, in addition to her traumatic brain injury.

Her first surgery at Methodist was on her back, as a blood clot was pressing against her spine. Rachel said because her lungs would fill with blood if she was flipped over, the delicate surgery had to be performed with Rachel on her side. However, the surgery was a success.

After more surgeries and time for her broken bones to heal, Rachel was transferred to Baylor Institute of Rehabilitation in Dallas and then to PATE Rehabilitation Center, where she began her long road back. Because of her traumatic brain injury, Rachel had to learn how to walk and talk again.

But something happened a couple of weeks after Rachel arrived at PATE: the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the center to close. Rachel went back home, where therapists came to work with her in-home.

"It actually ended up being better for me because ... I was in my own environment with my family and my friends," Rachel said. "They said it would be the end of July before I would be done with my therapy ... but I ended up being done at the beginning of June."

In the aftermath of Rachel's accident, the local community banded together to help the Richie family pay their medical bills.

An event at the Ellis County Expo Center was held in February 2020 following the accident that raised money; and T-shirts were sold bearing the image of a sketch drawn by Rachel containing a Bible verse. A GoFundMe page to help the Richie family has raised almost $50,000 to date.

"Our family doesn't have the best insurance in the world," Rachel said. "We still have doctor's appointments and we're still using money from those people. It paid for my therapy and hospital bills. I am so thankful for anyone that donated and anyone that even said a prayer. That's what saved me."

Rachel enrolled at the University of Texas at Tyler last fall and just completed her first full school year. She is majoring in psychology, a decision that was reinforced by her accident. She wants to pursue a master's degree in neuropsychology because of what she learned about the brain during her long road to recovery.

In the meantime, Rachel is willing to share the tale of her long journey back from the brink of death.

"I was always a Christian and very faithful, but this experience has secured my faith," she said. "I have been sharing my testimony because God gave me this story. I plan to tell it for the rest of my life."

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