Two nursing students who were critically injured in February were able to attend graduation proceedings at their Southwest Pennsylvania college earlier this month, according to a published report.
Cami Abernathy and Alissa Boyle of Waynesburg University fell 40 feet from a highway overpass on February 20 while trying to help the driver of an overturned jeep, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. They were heading toward fulfilling clinical rotations of the sort they will do when working nursing jobs.
But Abernathy now has a spine bolstered by twin steel rods, Boyle ended up paralyzed from the waist down, and both were treated at Ruby Memorial Hospital, the medical center to where they were driving to work when they came across the accident. Abernathy said the experience has imparted upon her the need to fully explain procedures to patients and their loved ones.
"You definitely get a different perspective because you're used to taking care of a patient, but you don't know how a patient feels," she told the news source.
The two said they plan to complete their studies this summer.
Located in Morganton, West Virginia, Ruby Memorial Hospital is the largest medical center within the West Virginia University family of hospitals, the facility's website states.