DETROIT – It was a motocross race on the weekend of July 4th.
Fourteen-year-old Layla Fuller from Novi was taking a practice lap at Valley MX in Stanton.
Her step-dad, Joshua DeLong, was watching when everything went horribly wrong.
“Her and another kid, they were battling coming over a really small jump, and the jump goes downhill. So when they landed, her front tire went into his back tire, and it caused her to just slam into the ground. And from the moment she hit the ground, she was out,” said DeLong.
As she rolled down the hill, Layla’s helmet flew off.
A medical helicopter flew Fuller to a hospital in Grand Rapids with a traumatic brain injury.
“The surgeon came out about halfway through her surgery and told us that he wasn’t sure that she was even going to make it. He told us she had a brain bleed,” said Layla’s mom, Danielle DeLong. “They had to leave the right side of the skull off to leave room for swelling.”
Fuller spent 17 days in a coma.
“Seventeen days, she didn’t wake up,” said Danielle. “That was tough.”
Layla’s family decided to move her closer to home to Children’s Hospital of Michigan.
“When we met Layla, she was four weeks out, about, from a dirt bike accident,” said Dr. Tess Woehrlen, attending physician in the physical medicine & rehab department at Children’s.
“She was opening her eyes, but she wasn’t following to sound. She wasn’t looking at anyone. She was moving her arms and legs, but not purposefully, meaning she wasn’t sitting, she wasn’t walking,” said Woehrlen.
Through weeks of intensive inpatient rehab at Children’s Hospital, Layla has made remarkable progress.
“You wouldn’t even recognize her. She’s awake, she’s walking, she’s talking,” said Woehrlen. “On discharge, we’re planning to send her back to school. So she’s been through a lot, and all of that was her hard work.”
Her family couldn’t be prouder.
“She fights because she wants to be normal, so she’s fighting to be normal again,” said Joshua.
“Layla is a little spitfire. She’s got a wild mouth and a wild personality. You can’t hold her down from nothing,” said Danielle.
Layla is still struggling with some memory issues.
“Every day is a little better, and every day she starts to remember things from the day before. So she’s well on her road to hopefully being back to completely normal in the next few months,” said Danielle.
The motocross community has embraced their family. Their “PrayersforLayla” Facebook page has over five thousand followers.
“People from everywhere across the country, Texas, Colorado, California, Nevada, we’ve had people from the UK, people from Uganda, Botswana,” said Joshua. “We wouldn’t have made it to this point if it weren’t for this community and them helping us get through for Layla.”
The family also has a GoFundMe to help with medical expenses. You can donate here.
When Layla first arrived at Children’s, they asked her mom what she hoped Layla could achieve before leaving.
“I was trying not to ask for too much, but I was like, ‘I would love it if she could walk, talk and eat and just be able to walk out the front door of this hospital,’ and she is going to be doing all of that,” said Danielle.
Children’s Hospital is holding a “clap out” celebration tomorrow to send Fuller off in style.