'AddieStrong:' Worthington teenager on road to recovery from luge accident
WORTHINGTON, Ohio (WCMH) – When you think of the sports that a central Ohio teenager would fall in love with, luge is not one that comes to mind. But it's the sport that Adeline Albert fell in love with.
Adeline's luge journey began on a sled at Big Run Park in Columbus at the White Castle Slider Search in 2017.
"I tried out for that one year and made it to their next level, which is a screening camp on actual ice," said Adeline, a freshman at Thomas Worthington High School. "You go up to Lake Placid, New York and from there, they choose their development [team]."
She's traveled the world sledding down the track, from Canada to Latvia to Pyeongchang, South Korea this February for a test event for the 2024 World Junior Olympics.
But on February 7th, during a training run with her partner, Mount Vernon's Maggie Richardson, something went terribly wrong.
"This is all from what I’ve been told because I do not actually remember," said Adeline. "We were going into this one curve, and I would assume we went late. We hit the roof and then came down and then actually missed the short wall and my head hit the bar above the short wall. I wasn’t actually unconscious until five minutes after that."
Rob and Renee Albert were notified of the accident while at home in Worthington.
"Everything was fine in South Korea as far as we knew so it was kind of a shock to get a text saying your daughter has been injured," said Rob. "I’m still pretty kind of emotional about it but it was definitely a traumatic thing to hear that your daughter is being rushed to emergency surgery and we have to give a verbal okay for the surgery to happen. It was crucial to have that done within four hours of the accident."
After hopping on a 14-hour flight, Adeline's father, Rob, finally got to her in South Korea to be by her side.
" I didn’t recognize her. To see her in that condition was kind of shocking," said Rob.
Adeline had suffered a traumatic brain injury. The doctors took off half her skull to allow the brain to swell. She wasn't supposed to wake up from that first surgery for a week, but she woke up just one day later.
"Probably within two days, she was in physical therapy after the first operation. And then she had the second operation about 8-9 days later," said Rob.
Nearly a month later, Adeline was finally released from the hospital. Upon her return, an overwhelming amount of support came in, including from her Thomas Worthington field hockey teammates, who coined the phrase "AddieStrong", in honor of their friend.
As for Adeline's future in the sport of luge, that is to be determined.
"It’s still a sport that I love and I’m hoping that one day I’ll be hoping to try it again,' said Adeline, "but we’re not there yet."
To this day, Adeline has not watched the video of the crash, but she says she might watch it someday to understand just went wrong, especially if she ultimately decides to make a return to the track.