After a serious car accident, Carla Sanderson spent three weeks at our Elvis Presley Trauma Center and Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital.
She suffered serious injuries, but she says the exceptional care she received lifted her spirits and healed her body.
Now, Carla is back to her family, embarking on new adventures, and seeking ways to help others – and she’s grateful to Regional One Health for helping her get back to the life she loves.
A car accident caused devastating injuries to Carla Sanderson’s body.
But it only made her spirit stronger as faith, family, and expert medical care helped her heal.
Carla spent three weeks at Regional One Health’s Elvis Presley Trauma Center and Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital in early 2024. While it’s an experience she would never want to repeat, it is also one that left her feeling grateful and inspired for the next chapter of her life.
“It has been a really blessed time. I didn’t have one dark day,” Carla said. “As a former nurse and nurse educator, I have always held Regional One Health in high regard. I know it’s the best place to be, and I felt very secure right from the beginning.”
“It was a wonderful experience from top to bottom…although I hope we never have to go back!”
Carla was enjoying the rewards of a life well lived when the accident thrust her into the world of trauma care and rehabilitation.
She was working as provost for Chamberlain University, an online healthcare university that helps under-resourced students earn their degrees, following a lengthy career at Union University, where she is Provost Emerita and also served as an educator and dean. Her husband Larry was retired after spending many years as a railroad engineer and in property management.
They enjoyed their church family at First Baptist Church in Jackson, Tennessee, where they live; as well as spending time with their three grown sons and their families.
Carla spent time in the Elvis Presley Trauma Center and Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital after a serious car accident. “As soon as I got to Regional One Health, I had a warm feeling,” she said. “I had excellent care. I always felt well attended to.”
Clayton, their oldest, is chief operating officer of City Leadership in Memphis, and has three young children with his wife Laura, a member of the YoungLife Memphis team. Cullen, their youngest, also lives in Memphis as an employee of DSV North America division. He has one son and another on the way with wife Mollie, a math teacher and Instructional Coach in Collierville.
Their middle son, Cody, was diagnosed with developmental delays as a toddler and is now a thriving adult. He lives with Carla and Larry while working at an elementary school, spending time with his friends, and “being a pretty good uncle unless duck hunting gets in the way,” Carla laughed.
Carla and Larry were driving with Cody to Memphis last February to celebrate their grandson’s 3rd birthday when that happy, full life changed in an instant.
A young woman, driving impaired on a revoked license, crossed the median. Later, they would learn a police officer had clocked her at 106 mph.
“She was heading east, and we were going west. She hit the median in such a way that it threw her car into us headfirst,” Larry said.
Amazingly, they were conscious after the crash, and Carla used her nursing background to do a basic assessment. Most troubling was the fact that she couldn’t feel her legs or feet, and her right arm was completely limp.
“In a few minutes a bystander came by and said, ‘I’m a nurse, I’ve got you,’” she said. “I let go, and I went out. I don’t remember anything from that moment until they put me on the gurney.”
It was a blessing, and Carla found more reasons for hope as paramedics arrived.
First, she heard the first responders discussing transport. “The helicopter was there, but they said, ‘Take her in the ambulance, she’s stable.’”
Then, when paramedics put her on the gurney, the blood rushed back to her legs and she regained sensation. “I thought I’d lost my legs and feet, then all of a sudden I had them back,” she said. “It gave me an ‘I can do this’ attitude.”
Dr. Mario Ray, Medical Director of the Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital, is one of several doctors who was instrumental in Carla’s care. She is also grateful for her exceptional nursing team for their expertise and compassion.
She even had a ‘proud mom’ moment when Cody took charge of calling his brothers to tell them about the accident. “I’m proud that he had the wherewithal and composure to do that,” she said.
At Regional One Health, Cody was treated in the emergency department for a broken arm. Larry was admitted to the ICU for two nights with contusions to his liver and spleen.
Carla was taken to the trauma center. “My injuries were fairly extensive,” she said. “I’m a nurse, so I’ve seen a lot worse, but they were fairly serious.”
She had spinal injuries that would require two surgeries and four months in a cervical collar, as well as a torn diaphragm, broken ribs, fractured hand, and Morel Lavelle Wound on her hip. Morel Lavelle Wounds, usually seen in motorcyclists who skid on the pavement, are soft tissue wounds in which high-velocity force causes the skin to be violently sheared from the body.
But despite the trauma to her body, Carla’s mindset remained positive.
“As soon as I got to Regional One Health, I had a warm feeling,” she said. “I had excellent care. I always felt well attended to.”
Carla remembers seeing signage referencing Regional One Health’s former name, John Gaston Hospital, where she did some of her nursing school rotations. It was a reminder that receiving care from a teaching hospital is the best possible situation.
“I always implored students to work at a teaching hospital at some point in their career. You learn things and do things you wouldn’t get to do anywhere else,” Carla said. “From my experience at John Gaston while and undergraduate student and at University of Florida Health Shands Hospital while a PhD student, I’ve always been a big advocate for teaching hospitals for both the care and the education they provide.”
These days, Carla is back to the life she loves – spending time with her close-knit family, trying out new adventures including writing and walking in distance events, and using her faith to help others.
Carla knew it meant she was receiving the most advanced care from leading experts. Inpatient Rehabilitation Hospital Medical Director Mario Ray, MD, and surgeons Matthew Rudloff, MD, Michael Muhlbauer, MD, and Norfleet Thompson, MD were instrumental in her treatment.
Carla and Larry are also grateful for their nurses, who provided excellent care and showed them humanity and compassion.
Larry remembers the fear and worry he felt for Carla those first nights, even as he dealt with his own injuries. His nurses rose to the occasion.
“I kept asking to see her, and two nurses got together and took me down there,” he said. “I was already emotional, and I about lost it when I saw her. She was in traction, but she looked over at me and smiled and said, ‘We’ve got this.’”
And indeed they did.
After returning home, Carla has embraced life with an even more powerful drive to experience new things, cherish her family, and put goodness out into the world.
She’s currently taking a writing workshop and is thinking about putting Cody’s amazing success story down on paper, and she plans to use a loom she inherited from a friend to try out weaving. She started taking part in the Tennessee State Park Running Tour, which hosts walks and runs throughout the state.
“I went home on a walker, and now I’m walking in 10Ks and 5Ks,” Carla said. “That has been so healing to my spirit. It’s very special to me.”
She also plans to help others. She has empathy for the driver who hit her, leading her to feel a calling toward prison ministry work.
“I could have had disabling injuries, or even depression. I was spared all of that, and as a person of faith, I know there is a purpose there,” Carla said. “I’m praying with my palms open – for God to give me the project He wants me to do, where I can do as much good as possible.”
Regional One Health holds a special place in her heart for helping her do so. “We will forever be ambassadors for Regional One Health,” Carla said. “We’re as grateful as can be.”