South Florida woman shares story of survival and recovery after motorcycle accident

These days Amy Barwell says life is good. 

“I feel 100 percent now,” Barwell said.

She’s back on her feet, active, finished her degree, and feels like her old self again. 

“I’ve rock climbed, worked out in the gym,” she said.

Barwell has come a long way since February 2014.

“I was just going for a ride with them,” she said. 

Barwell went on a motorcycle ride with her neighbor — a decision that changed her life forever. 

“I was thrown a few hundred feet,” she said.

The motorcycle crashed into another vehicle, and the impact threw her to the ground. 

Her neighbor didn’t survive. Barwell almost didn’t make it. 

“They found me with my right foot near my left shoulder,” she said. “I was bleeding out of my ear.”

Barwell had fractures from head to toe. 

“During the accident, I shattered my pelvis in seven or eight pieces,” she said. “They put it together with screws and plates.”

She also had a brain hemorrhage, a broken ankle, a torn ligament, and was in a coma for two weeks. She had brain surgery which involved doctors removing one-third of her skull. 

Barwell spent months wearing a helmet and learning how to walk and talk again. 

“I had to sort of relearn how to write,” she said. “Reading took a little more focus and maybe some finger-following on a page.”

She was in a wheelchair and went through months of physical therapy. 

It’s a tough time she reflects on with the celebration of National Trauma Survivor’s Day later this month. 

She said the biggest battle was staying positive. 

“It was very defeating,” Barwell said. “How am I supposed to get back from this? Where do I start? With which injury do I start?”

“The pain she was in was almost unbearable,” said Douglas Dillon, a physical therapist with Broward Health North. 

Dillon helped Barwell recover.

“We didn’t know how far she could go because of the extent of her injuries,” he said. “By the time, we were done she was starting to walk.”

A year after the accident, Barwell was walking again. 

Her trauma became the motivation for her going back to school at Florida Atlantic University and graduating with a Bachelor's of Science in nursing in 2018. 

Her care team was by her side on graduation day. Her ICU nurse even pinned her for her nursing pinning ceremony. 

“My life would not be as full without those people in it,” Barwell said. 

Despite the long road to recovery, Barwell says she wouldn’t change anything. 

"I would not go back and keep my accident from happening," she said.

She’s sharing her story to inspire others who’ve survived similar trauma to never lose hope. 

“If you just keep trying, you might even surprise yourself,” Barwell said. “Just don’t give up.”