TRAFALGAR — A Trafalgar teen is returning home this week, following a three-month-long stay at several hospitals.
Megan Murray, 18, was among the three young girls who were seriously injured in a crash on Interstate 65 back in August. The girls were headed to the Indiana State Fair when their pickup truck hit a guardrail and rolled off I-65.
“I feel extremely lucky to be here today because for a while we didn’t know if I was going to see the outside of the hospital,” Murray said.
Murray said she doesn’t remember much from the side-swipe crash that ejected her from the truck, as it tumbled off the highway.
“It’s just a freak accident,” she said. “And that’s what it was.”
The trio was on their way to the Indiana State Fair that August day, where they were going to show cattle in 4-H.
“We were on our way up there, but we just didn’t make it,” Murray recalled.
The crash left Murray with 22 broken bones, including her femur, pelvis, all of her ribs on her right side, and a ruptured spleen.
“I had fractured my elbow and it became dislocated,” Murray said. “So I had elbow reconstruction and at least seven screws in it.”
She spent 98 days in the hospital, totaling at least 10 surgeries that she said she can count as of right now. "And, I've got two more," Murray added. "My gallbladder has got to come out and then all the hardware in my elbow is going to come out."
But the fighter she is, on Monday, the teen finally got to go home.
“The nurse, she came in to discharge me, and she was like all right we need to get you in the wheelchair," Murray recalled. “And I was like, I did not just spend the last month and a half here to not walk out of here.”
And that she did, walking for the first time three months after the wreck. Murray said she's grateful to be alive and grateful to everyone who supported her.
“My family and I have had a ton of community support and love, and I want people to continue not just for me and myself but for anyone that is in a position like this just to help them,” she said.
