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MacKenzie Clare is the sweet little red head that you see
wheeling in and around Northern Virginia, specifically Leesburg
and Ashburn. On April 2, 2005 MacKenzie’s world as she knew it
was changed forever. This once healthy, active child is now
paralyzed from the chest down.
MacKenzie and her parents were on their way to a Girl Scout
outing in Baltimore when a minimally-insured driver of a pick-up
truck lost control and hit her car head-on at approximately 75
miles per hour. Although everyone in the car was seriously
injured that day, MacKenzie sustained the most catastrophic of
injuries.
At the
young age of 13, she has a strong and fit body and mind and the
innocence, optimism and spunk of a little girl trying to live as
normal a life as possible as a 7th Grader. MacKenzie has endured
a lot in the past 3 years. She wears a body brace 23 hours a
day, and does approximately 1-2 hours of therapy after school
each evening! Besides home therapy, MacKenzie also travels to
Shriner’s Hospital in Philadelphia and Baltimore’s Kennedy
Krieger Spinal Cord Injury Center every 3 months for follow-up
visits and more intensive therapy. She is a motivated student
who does very well in honors classes at Harper Park Middle
School, where she recently received an award for her enthusiasm
and hard work in Adaptive PE!
Even with health insurance, the family will face many life-long
extraordinary uninsured medical expenses. Following the accident
the family had to move to a wheelchair accessible apartment.
Now, after two years of emotional and physical healing, The
family has finally found a home in Leesburg that will
accommodate MacKenzie and her wheelchair. The family is now
faced with the financial burden of home modifications as well as
the purchase of necessary handicapped equipment. To help offset
these uninsured expenses, a fund-raising campaign in her honor
has been established through the Catastrophic Injury Program of
the National Transplant Assistance Fund (NTAF). NTAF has been
assisting the transplant community with fund-raising for over 24
years. In 2000, they expanded their mission to assist those who
have sustained a catastrophic injury. All donations are
tax-deductible and are administered by NTAF for injury-related
expenses only.
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