Maria Montoya remembers talking excitedly about frogs at the zoo that July morning and later enjoying ice cream with her friends. However, she has no memories of the tragic three-car crash that happened a few hours later, which injured her and took the life of one of her best friends.
Montoya, a 26-year-old English teacher at Bernalillo High School, was sitting in the front passenger seat of a car driven by friend Tiger Gutierrez when a truck sped through the intersection of Coors Boulevard and Montano Road in northwest Albuquerque.
The truck crashed into the driver’s side and sent their car into the path of another. The driver of the truck later failed police sobriety tests. Montoya and Gutierrez were rushed to UNM Hospital where she underwent treatment for severe brain trauma. Gutierrez did not survive his injuries.
“Tiger was one of my best friends,” said Montoya. “We were both coaches for local elite volleyball teams. He was engaged to my best friend Gianna, so I spent all my free time with them.”
“Maria experienced a traumatic brain injury,” said W. Austin Davis, MD, who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Lovelace UNM Rehabilitation Hospital. “She was unresponsive following the injury and required intubation (breathing tube) to protect her airway. She also needed surgical procedures to alleviate swelling and bleeding in her head.”
Montoya was placed in a medically induced coma for her brain to start healing. After more than a week in the intensive care unit (ICU), she was slowly weaned off the medications and began to wake up.
It was in the ICU that the family first met Dr. Davis. “He was very good, very informative,” said Rosella Montoya, Maria’s mother. “He was upfront about everything, explaining all the possibilities that could happen and what they would do to keep improving Maria’s condition. He was very knowledgeable.”
Rehabilitation
Once she had recovered from days in the ICU, Montoya started rehabilitation under a team of specialists: physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech and language pathology, rehabilitation nursing, nutrition, neuropsychology and brain injury medicine.
Some of the rehabilitation exercises Montoya still participates in are:
- Gait training – Physical therapy that strengthens muscles and increases patients’ range of motion to help with their walking and balance
- Advanced balance – Physical therapy to help with the balance needed for bathing, dressing, bathing, using the restroom, etc.
- Cognitive activities – Increasingly challenging activities to maximize her functional recovery and get back to life as quickly, fully and safely as possible
One of the most important teams of specialists is Montoya’s own family.
“We did lots of memory games,” said her mother, Rosella. “We also restarted crochet projects to get her motor skills going and we walked a lot to give her extra movement.”
The walking also helped with Montoya’s perception and balance, which are hindered by severe hearing loss on her left side, a result of the crash. She is scheduled to get a hearing aid implant in the summer.
Bright future
Dr. Davis sees a bright future for Montoya. “Her prognosis is wonderful,” he said. “Recovery after severe head trauma is a marathon and not a sprint. Life is commonly different after the injury, but not necessarily bad. The focus of our interdisciplinary brain injury rehabilitation team is always to help people obtain a quality of life and daily functioning that makes them happy.”
Earlier this year Montoya took a giant step forward when she returned to teaching at her high school, hosting an online English class for ninth graders. She hopes to teach more classes next school and continues to coach her club volleyball team for 12-year-olds at E3.
She’s also looking forward to an upcoming trip this spring.
“I’m getting together with some lifelong friends to visit our friend who just moved to Corpus Christi,” she said. “It will be great to see everyone!”
Montoya is grateful to the team at Lovelace UNM Rehabilitation Hospital, especially Dr. Davis. “He was there to help every step of the way and got me to where I am today. Thank you, Dr. Davis!”
Partnership for healing
Maria Montoya's story is another example of the excellent patient care at Lovelace UNM Rehabilitation Hospital. Created from a partnership between Lovelace Health System and University of New Mexico Medical Group, the hospital's goal is to return people recovering from illness or injury to the highest quality of life possible.
Formed in 2017 to improve access to rehabilitation services for New Mexico residents, the partnership established New Mexico's first Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Residency program as well as the only Brain Injury Medicine Fellowship in the Mountain West region. Lovelace UNM Rehabilitation Hospital offers comprehensive inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech-language pathology.
A variety of injuries and conditions require rehabilitative care. No matter what you're experiencing, our physicians are dedicated to helping you recover. For more information, call 505.727.7177 or visit our website.