The runner suffered a spinal injury in a “brutal car accident.” Two years later she ran a half marathon

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Kaylen Ardiles-Cervera loved running. “I realized that when I run, the only measure is me. It was a great joy to see how much more efficient my body became. Endurance changes everything,” she tells TODAY.com.

In December 2021, she had already been running for five years and was training for the New York City Marathon when her life took a drastic turn.

She had flown to Florida to celebrate her sister’s birthday. “I was on my way to drop off decorations at the banquet hall and was hit by an oncoming car,” she says. “It was a distracted driving situation.”

Her car almost overturned. A few days later, she woke up in the intensive care unit with a concussion, inflammation and nerve and spinal cord damage. A protective splint covered her: “My body just felt like lead. It was pretty brutal,” she says.

Ardiles-Cervera has always been able to rely on her body for strength and endurance. Now she couldn’t move one side at all: “Due to the severe inflammation from the impact, one side of my body simply didn’t respond.”

There was no timetable for when – or if – she would recover. A doctor had a long conversation with her in which he painted a bleak picture and tried to limit her expectations to the bare minimum.

“He copied a lot of things. He said I should just settle for walking and we could see what happens once I’m done with physical therapy. I was so idealistic. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. In my head I thought, ‘I’m going to start running really easy,'” she says. “It was difficult to find my new norm.”

Take the path to recovery

Ardiles-Cervera was hospitalized in Florida, hundreds of miles from her home in New York City, and was cared for by neurologists, orthopedists and physical therapists. She had gone from running miles effortlessly to trying to learn how to safely maneuver from bed to wheelchair.

She had to adjust her expectations. “Something in my head finally clicked – I’m really not running this marathon. I can hardly sit. “That’s not happening,” she says.

After a few weeks of medical care in Florida, she was able to move. Instead of returning to New York, she went to Atlanta, where she has a large family and her grandparents have an accessible home and bedroom.

Coming to terms with her limitations was a challenge: “You don’t realize how much you take for granted.” She couldn’t go to the toilet alone or prepare her own breakfast.

“There was such a strange change in my life, from walking around in circles to staying in one place. I think that was the hardest part,” she says.

Over time, she moved from a wheelchair to a walker and finally to a cane. “I think I probably pushed it too hard at the beginning. When I found out I could use a walker, I thought, “That’s all I need.” “I can do this,” she says.

“Part of my brain kept saying I could get through this faster if I was more diligent, and that’s not what recovery is like.” Trying to hurry set her back. She would have flare-ups and lose her mobility. After nine months in Atlanta, she was finally strong enough to return to New York to continue her recovery and return to work as a doula.

Back to running, step by step

It was early 2023 before Ardiles-Cervera could try running again. This spring she ran two miles for the first time since the accident: “I still have a photo from that day. Just running two miles was a lot for me. It was such a humbling moment.”

To take care of her body, she takes pelvic floor physical therapy and craniosacral therapy and goes to a chiropractor and an acupuncturist: “Even now, today, after the accident, my body is noticeably different.” I have a lot to do working on my bodywork so I can walk. One side of my body has some pelvic instability from the impact. I also have problems with a hip, and my shoulder sometimes itches when running long distances.”

She also has physical therapy specifically for running. “I stayed on an easy, steady basis of two to four or five miles and couldn’t get past that without significant pain. I knew I needed a physical therapist who specialized in runners to help me get back to distance,” she says.

She admits that it was painful to run longer distances again. “I don’t want to sugarcoat it. I would have run from the crash with so much ease. When I was having a bad day, I would really enjoy running, and then I would ask myself, ‘How do I tolerate this?’ I had to learn that discomfort is OK, but pain is not.”

Dealing with PTSD: Flashbacks, Nightmares, and Fear of Cars

It wasn’t just Ardiles-Cervera’s body that had to recover from the accident. She also struggled with mental health issues. At first, she had only one memory of the accident: She remembered holding onto the side of the steering wheel as the car was about to roll over, which may have prevented her from driving into a reservoir.

But memories came back. “I had bad nightmares about the noise of the cars and the screaming,” she says. “After the accident I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. I started getting violent flashes, constantly wincing, and wouldn’t go near cars. The flashbacks were so intense that it would take a while to ground myself and understand where I was. I would feel the heat of the car.”

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and therapy helped. “I had a really great, trauma-informed therapist who helped me process a lot of my remaining feelings. I struggled with the idea that I previously had such a fixed idea of ​​my body. I have always associated my body with functionality,” she says. “You don’t realize how much capability consciousness is in your mindset until you experience what it means to not have basic functionality.”

Her brain also had to recover from the concussion. She found it difficult to connect parts of her daily activities. “I started doing something and forgot to pick it up again. They told me to take my time and not focus too much on it. They said it was normal, and I said, ‘Not for me.'” But over time, her cognitive function returned.

She’s racing again and pushing the limits of her body

Ardiles-Cervera participates in the New York Road Runners 9+1 program. In it, you’ll run nine races and volunteer at an event in 2024 to earn a guaranteed spot in the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon.

She completed the first of the nine races in April when she ran the NYRR’s Real Simple Women’s Half Marathon – her first race since the accident.

“I was definitely emotional when I finished the race. I think it’s dawned on me that I’ve been training for so long. I had this really genuine feeling of gratitude that I could do it and that my body still felt good,” she says.

She also throws herself into activities that she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to do after the accident. “Since the end of last year, I have been able to live with freedom in my body that I haven’t had in a long time. I learned to dive. I’m learning to ride. There were so many things I had on a list before that I always thought I had more time for them. Now I want to see what my body can do.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com