River Bluff principal’s daughter returns home more than a month after Hawaii vacation car crash

More than a month after a catastrophic car wreck, a young Lexington woman has finally returned home.

Bekah Smith, who has been in a Honolulu hospital and then an Atlanta-area physical therapy center since the collision on a Hawaii highway June 28, was welcomed home Friday after finally being released from full-time medical care.

The Smiths staged a drive-through welcome as they drove up Corley Mill Road and through River Bluff High School, where Bekah graduated in 2022 and her father, Jacob, is the principal. The school’s resource officer led the family up past what Jacob Smith described as “hundreds and hundreds” of people who came out to welcome the at-times overwhelmed teenager.

The family greeted friends, family and supporters from their car, then continued to the Saluda River Club development where they live, with more neighbors lining the streets there.

“We don’t plan to stop, we just wanted to let her be celebrated,” Jacob Smith said from a car driving to Georgia to pick up his daughter Thursday. “This is really the story of her survival, which is just really crazy.”

Smith and her family were traveling on the Big Island of Hawaii on vacation when their car hydroplaned, collided with an oncoming vehicle and then slammed into a roadside lava wall. While Jacob Smith and his two sons were treated for more minor injuries in Hilo, Bekah had to be flown to Honolulu in critical condition and was placed in intensive care.

She needed neck surgery to repair an atlanto-occipital dislocation, also called an “internal decapitation” where the ligaments of the spinal column detach from the base of the skull. Such an injury is fatal in most cases. She was on a ventilator for almost a week, until the breathing tube was removed on the Fourth of July.

For almost three weeks, Bekah Smith had been at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta undergoing intensive physical rehabilitation. The rapid pace of her road back to health has given the family hope Bekah will have a near complete recovery relatively soon.

”She was flown straight from the Big Island to Honolulu in extremely fragile state, not knowing if she’s going to live or not,” Jacob Smith said. “We definitely are believing in a full recovery, that would be most ideal. We are not in control, but seeing strides that she made, she could have a near full recovery.”

Her father said Bekah will still need to recover from a traumatic brain injury suffered in the crash. She will delay the start of her sophomore year at Liberty University to return to the Shepherd Center for several weeks of outpatient treatment later this fall.

“If you talked to her now, you might not think she did (have a brain injury), but she’s got to recover from that for about a year,” Jacob Smith said.

For now, Smith says the family is looking forward to being at home again. Before the trip to Hawaii, Bekah had spent weeks at a Young Life camp, meaning she hasn’t spent more than one night in her own bed for almost three months.

“Just to give her a little break before we get back to Atlanta is the ideal scenario,” Jacob Smith said.

Bekah’s family has documented her journey on her Caring Bridge page, interspersed with memories, photos and words of encouragement, from her friends and supporters. The Smiths have leaned on their faith and their community to get through a difficult summer.

“I’m not bragging on her, but what’s most important, in these posts, is that her story has been told because of this, and her story is a beautiful story, a faithful story,” Jacob Smith said. “Her faith is important to her, and the people she’s invested in and loved on through years. ... The outpouring of all of those areas has been absolutely incredible and humbling.”