LAFAYETTE PARISH — After surviving a near-fatal crash nearly two years ago, a local teen is celebrating National Trauma Survivors Day by reuniting with the medical team that saved her life at Ochsner Lafayette General Medical Center.
Kallen LeBlanc,19, now a nursing student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, wasn’t always planning to be a nurse. But her path changed dramatically on July 8, 2023, when her car was T-boned near her home.
“They would always say you're a miracle, like you were not supposed to live,” LeBlanc said.
She was airlifted to Ochsner Lafayette General with fractured ribs, a bruised lung, multiple broken bones and dangerously low oxygen levels. As her condition worsened, she was transferred to Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas with the help of an ECMO machine — a device that oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body. “They traveled with the ECMO machine on the plane to Lafayette General, connected me to it, and traveled me back to Baylor,” LeBlanc said. “That’s where I was on ECMO for five days.”
Now fully recovered, LeBlanc said the experience gave her a new perspective and a purpose — to become a nurse. “After seeing the other side of it and the work that they do, it’s not just coming in the patient’s room, doing their job and getting out. That is not how nurses, nurse,” she said. “They are there. They listen.”
LeBlanc is now shadowing one of the nurses who once cared for her — Morgan Aucoin, RN, at Ochsner Lafayette General. “Certainly not an easy job, but it’s all very much worth it,” Aucoin said. “Seeing patients like Kallen want to go and make a difference and come back and help people like she was helped is pretty rewarding.”
Dr. Willard Mosier, Trauma Medical Director at Ochsner Lafayette General, said LeBlanc’s journey is why he continues to do this work. “Seeing patients like Kallen come back, walking, talking, living their lives — that brings warmth to my heart,” Mosier said. “If I can get one patient back to their family, that’s one family that doesn’t have to lose a loved one.”
On this National Trauma Survivors Day, Ochsner Lafayette General — the only Level II trauma center in southwest Louisiana — reminds the community of the importance of specialized trauma care. So far this year, the hospital has treated more than 1,300 trauma patients.
