'Miracle baby' walks in CLC line
13.05.10 - Brainerd Daily Dispatch
The event was all the more remarkable for the 26-year-old Maile because she wasn't supposed to be walking at all after a car crash four years ago left her paralyzed from the chest down.
It was Dec. 3, 2006, and Maile and her brother, Ricky, were driving home to Brainerd from their jobs at Grand Casino Mille Lacs when an underage drunk driver, traveling between 110-120 mph, rear-ended them.
"All I remember is (Ricky) screaming, 'Oh crap,'" Maile said. "Next thing I know, I woke up and I was laying across the car."
Maile was taken to St. Joseph's Medical Center and then airlifted to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale. One of her vertebra was severed and she spent the next three months in the Twin Cities recovering.
"It was Christmas at the hospital, pretty