Upper Township girl worked hard to get back onto lacrosse field after severe accident
UPPER TOWNSHIP — A year ago April 19, 13-year-old Karissa Kelly was lying unconscious, bleeding from the head with multiple skull fractures and an internal brain bleed. She had been riding an E-bike and collided with a car at 18th Street and Bay Avenue in Ocean City.
Although recovery has been slow, and Karissa underwent surgery last week, the determined Upper Township teen has been focused on getting back to a sport she loves, lacrosse.
“Life is about 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you handle it,” Karissa said.
She was in uniform waiting for the Ocean City High School girls JV lacrosse game to begin at the Tennessee Avenue sports complex.
In addition to the skull fractures, she hurt her hip. She and her friends had been going to get a bite to eat when the accident happened in 2024.
Ocean City Police Officer Ryan Lutz was first on the scene just before 9 p.m. and wrapped a T-shirt around her head to control the bleeding while waiting for paramedics. When Engine Company No. 2 and Ambulance Two arrived, fire Capt. Ray Clark called for a helicopter to transport Karissa to a trauma center, but weather conditions didn’t allow it. The first responders starting lifesaving medical care, including securing the girl’s airway, then transported her to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, City Campus in Atlantic City.
It was a pretty horrific accident, but she pushed to get out of the hospital in just over a week.
“I was determined to get out to go to my sister’s crew race,” Karissa said.
Coincidentally, one of her sister’s teammates, who rowed in the same varsity eight crew boat, was the driver of the car involved in the accident.
“They wanted her to go to in-patient rehab, and she was adamant that that wasn’t happening,” said her mother, Helene Kelly. “By day three, she was like, ‘You need to get me physical therapy in here because I need to do what I need to do to get out of here.’”
“Karissa was determined to get to the race to support them because she knew that (the accident) was also affecting them, and their boat had really high hopes for the season. She went to the race in a wheelchair.”
Karissa has undergone extensive physical therapy and “lots” of doctors’ appointments. She has been through occupational therapy to strengthen the muscles in her eyes and physical therapy and strength training for mobility.
The accident was in April 2024. She was finally cleared for athletics in December, forcing her to miss the fall sports seasons. The OCHS freshman is on the JV lacrosse team, where she plays on the attack.
“I just like being able to move the ball,” she said. “I love working with the girls … and just like being able to set up plays.”
“I think that Karissa is the epitome of grit and dedication,” girls lacrosse head coach Lesley Graham said. “She faced a challenge that most people, even into their adulthoods, haven’t faced, and she just she really dug deep and set a goal for herself.
“She said, ‘I want to be able to get back on the field,’” Graham said. “I know that she’s not necessarily at the level she wants to be at, being able to do all the things that she was able to do before the accident, but her ability to rise to the occasion has been inspiring for me too.”
The coach said Karissa reached out to her “wanting to do something about the mental health side of athletics,” and got involved in a program called Morgan’s Message, which is a community-based organization that really focuses on the mental health of athletes.
“She said to me, ‘You know, after my accident, I went through a lot, both physically, but also emotionally and mentally, and so I want to be able to be a resource for other people,’” Graham said. “That just shows her heart in the whole thing, and that’s the one thing that couldn’t be damaged. She’s really proven to be a dedicated teammate and trying to get herself better every day.”
“She had pretty extensive injuries as a result of the accident — basically a traumatic brain injury, a brain bleed, multiple skull fractures,” Helene Kelly said.
“She was out of commission for any kind of contact sports for at least six months, but that ended up being a good 10 months because she ended up also having cranial nerve damage,” her mother explained.
That caused eye damage that can make her see double.
“She just closes her eye. She’s playing with one eye. She’s pretty determined.”
It has been hard for Karissa.
“She’s very driven,” her mother said. “Even though she’s back to playing, she’s not where she was. So it’s hard for her to be on the field and not be at the caliber that she was before.”
She stays positive, but there are those few times here and there when she does get upset after a practice, but her mother said she takes those moments then pulls herself back out of it, “realizing how lucky she is.”
“She’s happy she’s back to playing, but she knows she would probably be … getting more playing time if it weren’t for everything that happened,” her mom said.
Karissa has been playing lacrosse since second grade in Upper Township and also for a team out of Avalon. She also plays club lacrosse for Shore Select out of Manasquan.
As for the surgery she had last week, the doctors had given her a year to see if the nerve damage would correct itself. The surgery was on her ear at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and she will be having eye surgery in the future, perhaps toward the end of summer.
Kelly said her daughter has had a great support system.
“She has tremendous friends. The community has been wonderful. I mean, everybody’s been really great, rallying around her. It’s hard because you have to be strong as her mom, but on the inside, you’re feeling everything she’s feeling. You want to cry like she’s crying, but you have to kind of hold it all together.”
Karissa has done more than she was scheduled to do throughout her recovery.
“When we went to get cleared by the neurologist, he was like, ‘I’ll put you on a return to play protocol.’ She’s like, ‘I’ve already put myself on that.’”
Two days before her operation last week, the team got together and had a party. She planned to stop by the firehouse to thank the responders who helped her after the accident.
As her coach said, Karissa is trying to do something else positive with Morgan’s Message because she wants to be an ambassador to raise awareness of mental health for athletes who are injured.
“She just has this innate drive that she’s always had,” her mother said.
“When she woke up in the hospital, the first thing she said was, ‘I have to go to lacrosse.’ And I said, ‘honey, you can’t go to lacrosse.’
“‘But my team needs me,’” she said.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff