By Lily Abromeit

[email protected]

In a few weeks, Carley Neustel will be able to go with her sister to an indoor pool and swim some laps.

Just a year ago, Carley, who is this week’s Kid Captain, wasn’t sure this would ever be possible again.

The Central City, Iowa, native and her sister Sydney got into an ATV accident on Labor Day in 2015. Carley was driving and accidentally over-corrected, causing the vehicle to roll, throwing the girls into the air.

“She broke her wrist and had a 4-inch gash on her head and broke both bones in her lower left leg and broke both bones in her right and was missing 11 centimeters in the bigger bone,” said Carley’s mom, Lisa Neustel, noting that Sydney had minor injuries.

Carley, a then-9-year-old, was flown to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital, where doctors discussed her different options.

Neustel said they didn’t know if she would be able to keep her leg. She had numerous surgeries right away, and because she could still feel and move her toes, the doctors decided they would try to “regrow” her bone.

This meant putting external fixators in her leg, or pins that were inserted into the bone to be turned a quarter of a millimeter four times a day. This slowly extended the bone.

“It is insane,” Lisa Neustel said. “It’s pretty cool that they can do that.”

This is the longest bone growth that’s been successfully done — growing back 9 of the 11 missing centimeters. Right now the process is on hold until the doctors decide it is safe to try to regrow the remaining two.

Neustel said it was really painful for the first four to six months but it’s much better now. Carley will get her cast off next week and a boot placed on.

“It feels good, it feels great,” Neustel said. “We feel really blessed that she is able to walk on both feet, she doesn’t need prosthetics. It might have made the process easier and less painful if she had just had her foot taken off but we’re very glad, and she’s very glad, she has that foot to run around on.”

Carley’s father, B.J. Neustel, said this is something he’s really looking forward to seeing again.

“I’m excited for the way things have gone. I really want to see her running and playing sports again like she used to … it’s hard to keep her down,” he said, noting that while she was healing, Carley would get up to do stuff even when it hurt.

Even with pins in her legs she found a way to help her father on the farm this summer.

“… in the summer, it’s usually moving things with the skid loader,” Carley said. “It was really great knowing that I could still help around the farm when I thought I couldn’t.”

This is one of the reasons B.J. Neustel thinks Carley made a good Kid Captain candidate.

“She’s done amazing things down there at the hospital,” he said. “There’s other kids that look up to her and even adults do, too, because she’s such a strong little girl.”

Lisa Neustel said having Carley as a Kid Captain is an exciting thing for her whole family, and Carley’s 14-year-old sister agrees.

“It makes her feel special, and it makes her feel a lot better,” Sydney said. “We got to meet football players and everything, and she loves the Hawks.”