Nine Months After Near-Fatal Crash, Teen Girl Is Set To Graduate: 'I Never Doubted It'

TOMS RIVER, NJ — On Wednesday evening, when the members of the Central Regional Class of 2017 walk down the path from the high school to take their seats in the middle of the football field at Joseph J. Boyd Memorial Stadium, it will be a special moment for every parent and family member in attendance.

For the family of Hannah Donner, however, the moment she walks through the line, shaking hands with school board members, administrators, and Superintendent Tom Parlapanides and receives her diploma will be even more significant.

"I really don't know how I'm going to feel," Hannah's father, Tom, said Friday night. "I'm really not sure."

It was a moment that, nearly nine months ago, seemed unlikely to happen in the wake of a car accident that nearly took Hannah's life. The doctors had told Tom and his wife, Donna, that their daughter might never return to school, let alone graduate.

Hannah, however, says there was never a doubt in her own mind.

"There's never been a moment when I thought I wouldn't be able to graduate," she said.

>> READ MORE: Ocean County Teen's Recovery From Near-Fatal Crash Simply Miraculous

There's a steely determination that comes through in every word the Manchester 18-year-old says. The Sept. 23 crash shattered her ankle, caused facial fractures and knocked out some of her teeth. She flatlined in the ambulance as they were waiting to medevac her to Jersey Shore University Medical Center, where she was unconscious and on a ventilator for seven days.

Hannah's sitting behind the bench during the Heroes for Hannah fundraiser, held Friday night at Pine Belt Arena, and organized to help her family with the extensive costs from her medical treatments. Dozens of people turned out to take part in the event, the highlight of which was a basketball game pitting members of the Toms River Police and Fire deparments against a team of Toms River North and Central Regional students and staff members. A 50-50 raffle, gift baskets and half-court shooting contest all helped raise money. A number of people and organizations donated to the effort, with Townsquare Media's Kevin Williams handling the announcing duties. (The game, fittingly, ended in a 91-91 tie on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the Heroes team.)

A scar below her lower lip and a faint mark on her left cheek are hints of what she has been through. Though some surgeries remain, Hannah said there have been people all along who were not sure she would recover fully from the crash.

Their doubts, however, never became her fears.

"We went ziplining in Cape May last week," Hannah said, when Central's seniors went to the Tree to Tree Adventure Park at Cape May Zoo, "and the teachers kept asking me if it was OK for me to do it."

"We had such a great time," she said.

"The doctors said 'Go, do whatever you can do,' " Tom said. It's a far different place than the family expected to be in when Hannah first arrived at Jersey Shore that night. Doctors warned the Donners she might not survive, and if she did, they could make no promises about what her life would be like, including school and graduation.

"When I woke up in the hospital, I knew it was going to be fine and I was going to be there," Hannah said. "The whole time, I knew."

In a November interview, when Hannah was just returning to classes at Central — she attends the Bayville high school under the Choice School program — two months after the crash on Route 530, Donna said her return was on a part-time basis. Hannah had suffered a brain bleed in the crash, which happened when she fell asleep behind the wheel shortly before 11 p.m. after having dinner with friends at the Sand Castle Diner in Beachwood.

Donna said the doctors told the Donners they were not sure how that would affect her cognitively, but from the moment she woke up in the intensive care unit at Jersey Shore University Medical Center seven days after the accident, Hannah was bound and determined to get back to a normal teenage life.

"I told the doctor I wanted to go back to school 'tomorrow' when I first woke up," Hannah said.

She had to modify her course schedule — "I had to drop Calc (calculus) because I had missed too much. But that was OK because I'm horrible at math anyway," Hannah said — and from January until a few weeks ago, she was in a study hall instead of gym class, because her right ankle was still healing. The return to gym class, another step back to normalcy, felt mostly good, she said.

"Running 2 miles didn't feel good," Hannah said, "but only because I didn't want to run 2 miles. I'm lazy. I hate running."

There have been moments that felt wonderful. Like dancing at her senior prom two weeks ago.

"I went to homecoming, but I was still on crutches. And I went to winter formal, but I was still in a boot so I couldn't really dance," Hannah said. Going to senior prom and being able to dance with her boyfriend, Andrew Kelly — "He held me up so I could dance at homecoming," she said — was special.

Kelly has held her up emotionally over the last nine months, too, she said. He and her core group of friends, several of whom were in attendance at the fundraiser, "have always had my back," she said.

Because the accident was so traumatic for her parents, Hannah said she found herself leaning on her friends when she needed to talk — and they supported her all the way.

"I was putting a lot on my friends. I needed to share (what she was going through) with someone who was a bystander, who wasn't directly involved," she said. "My friends had my back and never stopped having my back. If I was being nasty, they understood. If I couldn't remember something, they understood."

"They were so important and so helpful," Hannah said.

The other important step was driving again. "That was the biggest hurdle so far," Tom said. At first Hannah drove with either him or Donna in the car, Tom said, but over time, they finally sent her off on her own again.

"Hannah had a great point when we were first talking about it," Tom said. "She's not a bad driver. She fell asleep."

The routine that had always existed — text when she arrives at her destination, text when she's leaving to come home — has resumed, but Tom admitted the travel time "feels like an eternity" now. "I think I'm more worried about her being tired," he said.

That is one of the indelible memories from the night of Hannah's crash: Donna knows the times to the minute of when Hannah said she was leaving, what time they checked her progress, and what time they got the call from Manchester Patrolman Ryan Mabie that her car had hit a tree.

On Friday night, Mabie and three of the other officers who responded to Hannah's crash stopped by the Heroes for Hannah fundraiser to see the family.

"Do you remember them?" Donna said jokingly to Hannah as they spoke with Sgt. Joseph Hankins, Patrolman Matt Walaszek, Patrolman Tom Chant and Mabie. Hannah rolled her eyes, and everyone laughed. She doesn't remember much of anything from about two weeks prior to the accident, except for a visit to Georgian Court University, where she had been offered a spot on the volleyball team. (A fifth officer, Patrolman Mike Steffen, was unable to attend the event because he was one of five officers being honored at for saving the life of retired NJ State Trooper Brian Malast in January 2016.)

Donna walked up to Hankins and gave him a big hug. It was Hankins who drove her to Jersey Shore to be with Hannah while Tom drove home to pick up their older son, Zach, so everyone could be at the hospital.

"I can never thank you enough for what you did that night," she said to Hankins, who brushed it off. "It was what needed to be done," he said.

"It's a great feeling to see (Hannah)," Walaczek said. "A lot of the time you don't get any closure on these situations," Chant said. "It's nice to see a happy ending."

The happy ending isn't simply Hannah's high school graduation. She is headed to The College of New Jersey in Ewing to major in education with a concentration in English, and will be seeking certifications in English as a Second Language and American Sign Language as well.

She won't be returning to the volleyball court as a player, because "playing a sport where you get hit in the face a lot is a little more dangerous when you've had a brain injury," Hannah said. But she wants to be involved with the game again.

"TCNJ doesn't have a volleyball team, so I may try to start one and be its manager," she said. That way she could still have a role in the sport she loves, even if playing isn't possible. Her boyfriend, Andrew, is headed to Stockton where he will run track, so he won't be far away.

But first: graduation. For Tom and Donna, for Zach, for Hannah's grandparents and everyone who gathered at the hospital that night, praying with every ounce of being for her survival — many of whom were in attendance Friday night, trying to help with the family's extensive medical bills — the moment will be just another sparkling reminder of the miracle that is Hannah Donner.

"I'm very excited to graduate," she said. "I never doubted it for a minute."

Photos by Karen Wall