Young woman reunites with health care team that saved her 10 years ago

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A young woman recently reunited with the health care team that saved her life 10 years ago.

Read more ‘I see someone just jump into my car’: Family recounts terrifying airport carjacking

Helena Hazelton,18, experienced a seizure when she was just seven years old on Kauai.

She was playing and having fun when it happened.

“I just felt this like terrible feeling wash over me. It’s kind of hard to explain, but it’s like a feeling of nauseousness, but it’s very, it’s very scary,” Hazelton said as she recalled what happened. “When I went to sit down, my vision in my left eye went black.”

She was flown to Oahu’s Kapiolani Medical Center for treatment and was unconscious in the hospital for 24 hours.

“I just remember waking up in the hospital stretcher, and to me, it was very humbling,” she said. “I felt really embarrassed and vulnerable. It’s just such an out-of-control moment. I felt like my life wasn’t in my control anymore.”

Hazelton’s doctors diagnosed her with a “seizure of unknown origin.”

Her mother, Dana, explained it can “just happen at any time.”

“The treatment was to follow up with her every three months to do, like, the encephalopathy, the brain scans to try to see if the seizure would come again, and it didn’t,” Dana said.

“I haven’t had any problems since,” Helena added.

Once she was cleared to return home, Helena was determined not to let the seizure define her. She acknowledged that she was slower and not as joyful as she had been.

“I was worried kids would not want to be my friend if they knew I had a seizure… that was really hard to deal with for a couple of years,” Hazelton said. “I’ve accepted that traumatic things are going to happen to you, but just because something happened to you doesn’t mean that’s who you have to be.”

Hazelton recently graduated from Island School in Lihue.

To celebrate, her family wanted Hazelton to connect with the same Kapiolani and Hawaii Life Flight team after a decade.

Hazelton did not know about the reunion until a week before. On Thursday, June 18, she was surprised to see the two main nurses who treated her on that medical flight all those years ago.

Read more Earthquake felt off Hawaii Island; no tsunami threat

Hazelton said the idea of reuniting was hard for her at first, and being at the hangar made her think about her seizure for the first time in years.

“It made me really step back and realize that if it weren’t for Hawaii Life Flight and the Kapiolani medical team, I wouldn’t be here today,” Hazelton said. “It makes me so grateful.”

She said the first responders are people who love what they do and wanted to see her succeed.

“The fact that these people were proud of me and proud that I have made it this far really made me want to keep going. It’s surreal,” Hazelton said.

“It’s why we do this job. Our number one priority is the kids. Patient care is all that matters,” said Tim McClaren with the Kapiolani Critical Care Transport Team.

Dana said she was thankful for the medical team who treated her daughter.

“Literally down to the hardest moments of your life, that people are there for you, guiding you, and giving you the greatest medical care and the best psychological care for the families,” said Dana.

Hazelton said she plans to become a neuroscientist at the University of San Diego and join the medical field.

“I just want to help and work with the medical team to make a difference because that changed my life, and I want to be able to come back and give back to my community because if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today,” Hazelton said.

Read more Council member, residents protest new Kalaupapa hiking tours