CLEVELAND — A nurse who dedicated herself to others is fighting for her life after a car crash on her way home from a shift at the Cleveland Clinic.
Ally Schall's parents said that from a young age, she'd been called to help people.
"Her goal is to go on medical missions. She got her nursing degree; she's on that path. She got a job with the Cleveland Clinic," said Eric Schall, her dad.
Schall, 23, started working at Cleveland Clinic's Main Campus Emergency Room nine months ago.
Kelly Lenarth, a coworker, said she was a natural from the start.
"She's a beautiful person, all around, with everything she does. She's smart and very empathetic," Lenarth said.
Another coworker, Beatrice Balderas, said she's the nurse you would want on your worst day.
"We've seen full cardiac arrests, we've done other motor vehicle accidents, just a very wide variety of anything, we see it," she said.
But Schall's worst day, her parent's worst fear, came last Wednesday. She was on her way home from her shift at the Cleveland Clinic when her car was hit by a driver who allegedly ran a light.
"Ally has this app on her phone, Life 360, and it just has our family's location. We can just see where everyone is. I got a notification before midnight last week that Ally may have been in an accident," her dad said.
Though Schall grew up in North Olmsted, her parents moved to Iowa a few years back and said the wait to find out what happened to their daughter was agonizing.
"I called the District 3 Police Department and said, 'Hey, was there an accident by City Mission? Can you tell me that?' They said, 'Yes, there was,' and I saw her pin on the map move over to UH ER," Schall said. "We couldn't get any information because they didn't identify her for hours, so we are just crying and praying."
Schall's coworkers said University Hospitals phoned Cleveland Clinic because Ally was still in her scrubs and had her badge on.
"It truly could've been any one of us," said Lenarth. "She was just trying to get home, and her life just turned upside down."
And while, at first, it didn't appear she had any broken bones or any outward, life-threatening injuries, the Schalls later learned she was injured internally.
"The doctors were like, 'We are going to ween off the sedation, and she will wake up and be able to go home soon,' and then two days later, she hadn't woken up yet," her mom said.
An MRI revealed she has a post-traumatic brain injury.
"The one that is the most concerning is just above the brain stem in the mid-brain," her mom said.
Schall has a long road to recovery ahead of her, including physical, occupational and speech therapy. She will be moving to the Cleveland Clinic in Avon for the next steps of recovery.
Her friends from near and far, including Tennessee and Texas, flew up to be by her side.
"I know her memory has been in and out lately, specifically, her short-term memory, but the other night I asked her to share the gospel with me, and it brings me to tears because she said the whole gospel," said Ally's college friend, Jessica Settlemire.
Her parents are confident that Ally's unwavering faith, family and friends will help in her healing process and that she will be back doing what she loves again soon.
"If Ally knew that we were on TV, talking to people, one thing that would be really important is, 'Did you talk about Jesus? Everything she does flows out of that," her dad said.
Ally's coworkers at the Cleveland Clinic have started a GoFundMe page to cover her medical expenses. If you'd like to help, CLICK HERE.
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