An extraordinary woman who is also an amputee shares her journey with us. On Sunday, Dec. 1, 2013, Kayce Kerr was in a near fatal car accident along I-95 returning from Thanksgiving weekend in Maryland with her family. Rescue crews worked for over 2 hours in an attempt to extricate her from the vehicle. As a result of the crash, her right leg was trapped in between the steering wheel. Her right tibia was blown out, 4 inches of bone gone. Medic units contemplated amputating the leg on scene, but an educated medic observed her healthy leg tissue protruding from the wound and made every attempt to save the leg.
She was flown to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, NC with life-threatening injuries. Kayce underwent 6 surgeries on her leg, foot and ankle within 3 months enduring unimaginable pain and suffering. She had over 15 plates and screws placed in her lower extremities. With each surgery came complications and setbacks, but Kayce never gave up.
She Made the Difficult Decision to Move Forward
In 2018, Kayce got an infection ‘Staphylococcus Aureus’ and had emergency surgery. The infection resurfaced in 2019 and she was faced with a two-step surgery process or amputation. Kayce wanted to exhaust all options to keep her leg so she chose a procedure where doctors removed her mega-prosthesis and put in a concrete spacer (full of antibiotics), for 10 weeks to kill the infection until new mega-prosthesis was surgically placed which was ten weeks of no weight baring, isolated at home relying on family for caretaking. Unfortunately, another infection resurged in February of 2020, the pain was so great, a 2-inch hole in her right leg had formed. It was at that moment, Kayce wanted to reclaim her life and be done with the pain, the agony of hospital stays, surgeries, etc. and ultimately made the decision to move forward with an above the knee (AKA) amputation.
On May 15, 2020, Kayce became a right leg amputee after having her 19th surgery. Less than 24 hours after her surgery, she was up and walking around the hospital ward due to her strength and perseverance. Just six months after Kayce became an amputee, she had her running blade and was out practicing different drills with it and she is now waiting to get a knee to go with her blade so that she be out, and start running long distance like she was prior to her accident. In the meantime, Kayce has now built up almost 5k followers on Instagram, with the majority of her followers being amputees or car accident survivors. She has three or four amputees reach out to her everyday with questions about amputation or how to handle their prosthetics, and this is her true passion in helping others now.
Supporting Other Amputees is Now Her Passion
Her years of suffering left her wanting to help others. She has always been one to give back and put others first and founded Southern Maryland Survivors Network, a support group for accident victims and others who have endured trauma in their life. Unfortunately, SMS has been put on hold for a while due to COVID-19 but will hopefully be back up and running again soon.
Kayce is still not back to work full time, but she is in the process of getting certified in Personal Training and Nutrition so that she can continue to help support other amputees. We thank Kayce for sharing our story with us and wish her continued healing.
We encourage you to follow Kayce on Instagram at: kayceamputee and follow her journey. She is a true inspiration!
This article is also featured in our 2021 Spring Issue of Sharing our Recovery
The Crash Support Network is a unique one-of-a-kind website consisting of an online support group, a crash survivor blog, a quarterly newsletter, “Sharing Our Recovery” as well as highly informative articles. Our platform is based on relationship-building and puts the needs of survivors first by creating a helpful resource for victims and survivors of motor vehicle crashes.
