By Matt Turer (For OzarksSportsZone.com) – @MattTurer
Watch part one of Lauren’s story in the video above. Part two of the video is at the bottom of this article.
In her own home and her own bed, Lauren Turner struggles to sleep alone. When she’s awake it’s the memories. When she’s asleep, it’s the nightmares. The man she knew for the first 16 years of her life is gone. Her sister sleeps down the hall, but isn’t always the same person. It’s late, and there’s softball practice to think about and classes in the morning.
She remembers the good parts of him and the old parts of her. The passionate father. The athletic sister. The dad who planned on going to college with her to help continue developing her softball career. The little sister who was primed to be more athletic than she was, and was already as popular.
Why did it happen this way? He’d already died twice, and was brought back. A third and final death once seemed inevitable, before an experimental medicine stopped inevitability.
It was early morning in rural Cassville—a small, hard-working town in southwestern Missouri that’s closer to Oklahoma and Arkansas than any major city in its own state. Leslie Turner had a dentist appointment. Lauren Turner, an all-state level softball player for the Cassville Wildcats, practice.
The car was crushed. There shouldn’t have been any survivors after being hit head on by an 18-wheeler. Leslie kept breathing. Jim Turner didn’t.
Why did it happen this way? It’s a question without an answer.
Practice ended early that day. Lauren Turner came home and texted her sister. Leslie always texts back. This time, she doesn’t. Something is wrong.
“Highway patrol said there was a wreck, and I just knew,” Lauren recalls, thinking back to August 10, 2017.
It’s been more than a year since the accident. Lauren is sitting in her home with her mom and older sister, Lindsey. It’s a nice house no more than five minutes from Cassville High School. Paintings of exotic wildlife are everywhere—just something her mom likes, Lauren says. Photos of Lauren and her father appear throughout the living room. Lauren just returned home from softball, a loss to East Newton. For the first time, she talks publicly about the moment that changed her life.
“When I first got to the hospital, I’d already found out Leslie was in critical condition,” Lauren said. “But I was still in shock about what happened to dad. It was awful. I couldn’t sit still. I walked all over the hospital. I was so worried I was about to lose two of the most important people in my life. Leslie always had my back. We’d fight like cats and dogs, but she always had my back.”
Jim Turner was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Later, it’s determined that he leaned in front of Leslie before impact, likely saving her from what could have been a fatal blow.
“When I came upon the crash scene, I didn’t think anybody could survive,” Kim Turner said. “I thought the state trooper said, ‘They’re gone,’ but he said, ‘He’s gone.’ He told me you need to get up and go to Springfield. That they airlifted Leslie.”
The doctor told Kim they did everything they could to save her, but it didn’t look good. Her pelvis was fractured in four spots. Even more serious was a skull fracture that made any other surgery even more dangerous.
“After she survived three days, the surgeon said, ‘We’ve got to go. She’s bleeding from the pelvis. We’ve got to fix it,’” Kim said.
Leslie underwent a craniotomy in St. Louis. A portion of her skull was removed from her brain for over four months while she wore a helmet for protection. And then it was put back in place. As for the pelvis, a 12-inch screw was placed there. And in the middle of all this, Leslie entered a three-and-a-half week coma.
From the sidelines, Lauren watched.
“I couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t breathe. I’d go into shock,” Lauren said. “Seeing people coming in to see us was overwhelming. Eventually I had to leave the room. It was frustrating. Over 200 people showed up. It was a good feeling and a bad one, seeing the impact my dad and sister had on everyone.
“I told my dad all the time that I’d end up in an insane asylum if something happened to him. My whole world was shook. I used to scream. I’d get so mad. I’d wake up and lose my mind. I tried to never sleep alone. But driving to St. Louis to see Leslie, I’d turn the radio up and scream. I’d scream at him too. Asking why? I didn’t understand it and still don’t. It’s very frustrating.”
Part of that frustration stems from watching Jim fight health battles throughout his daughter’s life. He’d gone through open heart surgery and endured murcomycosis, an extremely rare fungal infection that caused him to lose his right eye. But his daughters always came first. And now it was Lauren who put Leslie first.
“When I finally saw her in the hospital, I just told her I loved her,” Lauren said. “We got in a big fight the night before. I woke up the next morning and went to practice and the last words we had weren’t good. So I just told her over and over again that I loved her. Told her to be strong like dad.”
Lauren tried to return to softball. An all-state level talent with aspirations to play in college, softball is what she does. But with every swing and every second spent on the field, she felt they were seconds that could be slipping away from time with her sister.
On August 31, 2017, the Cassville Wildcats softball team wore special “Team Turner” shirts for their game against Monett. The emotion of the moment overwhelmed Lauren.
“She saw the shirts and shut down,” Kim said. “She came home and bawled the entire night. She asked her if I’d be mad at her if she stopped playing. The stress was physically making her sick.”
“I told my mom I couldn’t do it anymore,” Lauren, who had four home runs in the first five games of the 2017 season, said. “I knew I was going to disappoint a lot of people. I knew my family would be upset. They questioned if that was really what dad would want me to do, but they knew I was right. His kids always came first no matter what.
“I knew that if I spent all my time on the softball field and something were to happen to Leslie, I’d have kicked myself in the butt the rest of my life if I chose the softball field over my sister. I didn’t want last moments to ever be a thing again.”
While the support was overwhelming, some in the area called Lauren a quitter. Those people couldn’t understand what the then 16-year-old was going through internally.
“I don’t tell a lot of people this, but one of the big reasons why I needed to get away from the team is I was supposed to take Leslie that morning, but I couldn’t because of practice. That was really hard. If I drove, that never would have happened. It’s no one’s fault. But that was hard,” Lauren said.
So she stopped playing. And missed school. And did it all for her sister, standing by her in the hospital through recovery. And growing up all too fast during it all.
“One night, she threw up in her hair,” Lauren remembers. “I had to hold her down in the shower [with the nurses]. She was screaming to let her go. I was bawling. She said if you loved me, you’d let me go. And I had to leave. I went into another room and I screamed and I cried. It all hit me. The whole situation.”
After that, even the thought of playing softball again was hard. Lauren kept her softball bag in her car, but had to take it out.
“She kept looking at it and tearing up,” Kim said. “She’d constantly look at that and say, ‘I hope dad isn’t looking down disappointed. I hope he’s proud of the decision I made.’ I’d see her put a ball in her hand, and I could tell it bothered her.”
Winter approached and softball came to an end. Her sister was close to being released from the hospital. And with winter came basketball season.
“Lauren chose softball but Lauren was an amazing basketball player too,” her mom said. “She knew how much her sister loved basketball, so she came back and played her junior year and wore her sister’s number. To see the first game when Leslie came back from rehab, the whole stadium stood up and gave her applause. That’s the type of sister Lauren is.”
“She loved basketball. So I did it for her,” Lauren said. “She doesn’t think I’m as good as her. She was so mad I quit softball. So mad. Called me a quitter.”
But basketball couldn’t fill the void softball left for Lauren. Junior year ended and summer approached. It had been nearly a year since she put her glove down, and it was almost time to pick it back up.
“She absolutely loves the game,” Kim said. “She said, ‘Mom, it killed me putting my glove down. But I want to do it this year.’ She made the decision on her own.”
“I struggled at first. I didn’t think I’d get back into it the way I was before my junior year, and I eventually did, but I struggled. I wasn’t hitting like I used to, but it’s awesome seeing it come back. When I started hitting I was so pumped up.”
Today, Leslie is in the process of rehab. She’s walking again, which wasn’t supposed to happen. And she’s been cleared for sports, which definitely wasn’t supposed to happen.
“She was paralyzed completely on her left side for four months. Her vestibular flexor muscle is not firing all the way. They didn’t think she’d get anything back. So this is a shock,” Kim said.
On Cassville’s senior night, Leslie wanted to walk up to the plate with Lauren, but she wasn’t ready. But just a couple weeks later, she began to walk on her own. And run without holding onto a teammate.
And Lauren is there for her every step of the way. Both on the field and off of it, where recovery is nearly as difficult due to her brain injury impacting her personality.
“The other night on the way back from McDonald County, she sat at a gas station table by herself. She thought no one wanted to sit with her. That’s the time I get real emotional about it because I can’t imagine how she feels. Being the cool, athletic one at school and then kind of being an outcast now. Because no one treats her the way they used to.
“One time I got on a group of girls for treating her differently. It hurts her feelings. I have to stick up for her and make sure people know what to say and not to say. It’s not their fault. I still don’t understand it. I don’t think she really understands why her friends aren’t the same with her. I’m coming home and I’m sleeping every single night besides someone that I don’t know either. But I’m getting to know her and getting to love the new Leslie. They have to try too, or it’s never going to work.”
How do you relax as a teenage kid that’s gone through something that so few adults have had to experience? Losing a father. Having a sister that is only alive because that same father sacrificed his life for her. How do you breathe?
You look for a butterfly. Your guardian angel.
“It hasn’t gotten easier,” Lauren said. “I’ve just gotten more used to it. There’s still times when I step on the field and have to tell myself to relax. It destroys me.
“We saw something on Facebook that butterflies mean a loved one who passed away is in a better place. That it’s a sign from heaven. And now I see a butterfly every game. I tell myself to relax. That he’s there. And I smile.”
