From Body Cast to Mountain Climbing

Kara Ryan ran around the area Thursday trying to get all the necessary supplies for her 19-day trip to Africa which begins Friday.

"Today's kind of crazy," Ryan said

Ryan, 20, flies to Zurich, Nairobi and finally to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain at 19,336 feet, according to the Tanzania National Parks website.

It's an accomplishment that Ryan is especially proud of, considering she spent four months in a body cast as a result of a car accident on River Road when she was 12.

"I broke my left foot, I broke my right femur, that actually still has two rods in it. And I broke my pelvis and my back. It was not good, but I've made as full a recover as I guess is possible," Ryan said.

She spent nine days in Morristown Memorial Hospital. When she came home, family friends had filled the living room with cards and flowers and "get well" wishes. They left Ryan with the realization that "there are a lot of nice people in this town."

Ryan stayed home in a body cast for four months, missing the first half of her seventh grade year. "I missed school, I missed [part of] my summer, I missed all kinds of stuff. But getting back to my life was part of the recovery process," Ryan said.

Ryan eventually went on to play lacrosse and captain the varsity tennis team at and worked with hurricane relief in New Orleans. "I still have some pain with my leg, and sometimes my back bothers me. I definitely don't bounce back as soon as I would have if I had never had any of these injuries. But definitely my determination to do more things comes as a result of these injuries," she said.

She currently attends the University of Notre Dame as a pre-medicine major with minors in anthropology and international affairs. "I like to learn about different places and different people and how that relates to their health, so this trip is a good combination of those things," she said.

Ryan will stay in Nairobi for a week with the 11-person climbing team before traveling to Tanzania for the climb. "We're visiting hospitals and villages for the first week," she said, working with a nonprofit called Save One Life.

The climb, which begins Aug. 6, is a fundraising tool for Save One Life, which benefits people with hemophilia and bleeding disorders in developing countries.

The fundraising goal for Save One Life's Mount Kilimanjaro climb is $50,000. As of Friday, July 29, the organization has received $38,841. Ryan said that

Ryan trained by hiking mountains near her grandparents' home in North Carolina and in the Longwood Avenue neighborhood of Chatham Township and by using stair climbers at the gym with her backpack strapped on.

"I've been making a lot of trips to REI," Ryan said, "and there's actually an outfitter ... at the bottom of Mount Kilimanjaro that will sell things that I will never otherwise need." The team will also take native porters with them to help guide their climb and carry equipment.

To Ryan, the trip is more than a fundraiser for a good cause. It's a chance to further demonstrate her recovery from the car accident eight years ago. "This is definitely not something I ever even imagined that [I would do]. Even just attempting to climb Mount Kilimanjaro is an accomplishment to me. Getting to the top would be amazing, but just the fact that i'm going and trying is my accomplishment."

Ryan leaves Friday returns from Africa on Aug. 16.