‘It’s a miracle that she’s alive’: Manheim Twp. teen’s mom shares daughter’s story of LCBC bus crash

On Sunday, Sept. 19, 14-year-old Adelynn Connors was on a bus back to LCBC’s Manheim campus from a religious retreat in New York state.

Her mom, Renée Connors, got a panicked phone call from the mother of one of Adelynn’s friends.

“She was crying hysterically, saying there had been an accident,” Connors said. 

The bus crashed around 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 19, just off the Hegins exit of Interstate 81 in Frailey Township, Schuylkill County. 

Adelynn, a ninth-grade honor student at Manheim Township High School, and 31 other people aboard the bus were injured. 

Adelynn’s back was broken. Her ribs on both sides were cracked. She underwent a massive blood transfusion and suffered a concussion so bad it weakened her eyesight. 

For a time, doctors wondered if she’d suffered brain damage. 

“I call her my walking miracle,” Connors said of her daughter. “It’s only by the grace of God that she’s here.”

‘We just prayed, prayed, prayed’

Connors, 44, described Adelynn as a “beautiful, smart, loving daughter” who gets excellent grades and loves skiing and swimming. She’s a member of the high school ski club and swimming team and swims with the Skyline Sharks team during summers. 

At first, Connors thought Adelynn might not have been badly hurt. As the day dragged on and she made her way to the scene of the crash, though, Connors still hadn’t heard from her daughter.

“You start playing mind games,” she said. “You think, ‘OK, she doesn’t have her cell phone so she can’t call.’ As more time goes on you think, ‘maybe she just doesn’t know my phone number.’”

Two girls still remain hospitalized in rehabilitation facilities after the crash, LCBC told LNP|LancasterOnline last week. State police also said the investigation into the crash is ongoing and no further updates were available.

When a youth volunteer, who had evacuated the less-injured girls off the bus, called out for Adelynn to see if she was still inside, there was no response. But Adelynn was still in the wreckage, unable to answer loud enough for the youth leader to hear. 

Emergency responders airlifted Adelynn to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, where they had to resuscitate her with a massive blood transfusion. Geisinger officials called Connors, letting her know “a whole team” was working on her daughter.

When Connors arrived at Geisinger, hospital officials summoned a chaplain and led her outside.

“My life was just done at that point,” she said.

Adelynn was seriously hurt and bleeding internally, hospital officials said, though at that point, they didn’t know the extent of her injuries.

“We just prayed, prayed, prayed,” Connors said. “I begged Jesus not to take her home, that it was not her time.”

Her spleen was shattered and needed to be removed. Her pancreas was cut in half. Her kidney was severed, and her adrenal glands and liver were damaged. Her ribs were fractured on both sides of her body. Her back was broken in an area that often leads to paralysis – a condition she somehow avoided, though she lost about 15% of her range while twisting.

A concussion weakened her eyesight, and it wasn’t clear if her brain was damaged in the crash.

“It took three surgeries to finally close her up,” Connors said. “She was intubated for a week.

“It’s just something that you never, ever think is going to happen.”

Surgery repaired Adelynn’s broken back, with surgeons inserting four screws and two rods into her spine. She’s still weak in her midsection and wears a hard clamshell brace, Connors said.

On Oct. 13, Adelynn left Geisinger to go home, nearly a month after just a few moments on a Pennsylvania highway changed her life.

Adelynn is recovering, both physically and mentally, and said her faith has only grown stronger. It’s been hard not being able to go to school and see her friends, she said, but she copes by spending time with them outside of class. That helps her feel like herself again, she said.

“I feel better and better the more I get back to my normal life,” she said.

Adelynn said it was God that saved her and the other girls who were on the bus.

“He kept me calm waiting for EMT and helicopters to arrive,” she said.

The road to recovery

Adelynn takes short walks around her neighborhood to get her strength back, because she can’t walk for long periods. A physical therapist comes to her home about twice a week.

Adelynn’s pain will probably continue for several more months or a year, her mom says. She might be able to return to more intensive activities like swimming over the summer, though what that may look like isn’t known yet.

“We don’t know if she’ll be able to be on the swim team or what,” Connors said.

The Connors haven’t been able to return to LCBC yet as a family, though Adelynn hopes to start attending youth services soon. A teacher works with Adelynn one-on-one in daily home-schooling, and she won’t return to class in-person until at least January.

Adelynn and her family rely on their faith to lead them through what they describe as a challenging time.

“We feel that (God) saved her,” Connors said. “We feel that it’s a miracle that she’s alive.”

Connors is grateful, she said, for the EMTs who recognized Adelynn had been injured internally, saving her life.

Support for the Connors is coming from all across Lancaster County, including LCBC, Adelynn’s swim team and her friends and other family. Some deliver meals to the Connors’ home every night. A Greek Orthodox church held a special service to pray for Adelynn, and a surgeon even sat down with Connors to pray at one point. More than $51,000 has been raised in a GoFundMe for Adelynn’s medical expenses. 

Even strangers have sent the family cards, and Connors has heard stories of people from as far away as Canada and Africa who have been praying for Adelynn.

“With all the doom and gloom, it’s been really nice to see so many people come around you and show their support and just want to try to help you in any way. It kind of restores your faith in humanity a bit,” Connors said, adding that those who want to help should give blood, because that’s what saved Adelynn.

Adelynn is “getting stronger and (seeming) brighter every day,” Connors said. Though Adelynn misses activities like swimming and skiing, “she’s handling it a lot better than I thought she would have.”

“Her whole life was flipped upside down,” Connors said. “Everything she knows has gone. Here she is becoming an independent person at 14, and here I am having to be her caretaker all the time and in her space.”

“It’ll be a long time before she’s back, and there’ll be many things that she can’t do,” she said. “But she’s alive, and that’s what we have to focus on.”