Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski Altoona's Melana Eyer guards fellow senior Lanie Wilt during practice at the Altoona Area High School Fieldhouse.

Since she was a little girl, Melana Eyer dreamed of playing college basketball.

This summer, that dream began to develop into reality as the years of camps, AAU games, long days of practice and training paid off with an offer to play collegiately at Shippensburg University.

With a lifelong goal within her grasp and a senior season of high school basketball ahead of her, Eyer decided to join some of her friends and do another activity she’s been passionate about her entire life — taking her side-by-side vehicle out for a drive to let loose for a few moments.

That night turned out to not only threaten her dream she had worked so hard for, but nearly turned out to be the last one of her life.

Eyer’s side-by-side collided with a metal gate near her property around Mill Run Road, and a pole from the gate impaled both Eyer and her friend, fellow Altoona student Megan Giles, who was sitting in the backseat.

“I was with my friends. We were going for a ride, and it was dark out,” Eyer said. “We were in the woods. We were coming out of the woods, and there is a metal gate. I couldn’t see it, and it kind of swung open. I realized I hit something, but I heard my friend (Meg) screaming in the back. So, I just backed up. That’s when I realized I was impaled. The gate went through my inner thigh and came out around my hip.”

When Eyer made the decision to back up, it helped free both Megan and herself.

“She was more worried about Meg, because she was screaming,” said Melana’s mother, Rachael, who was taking Melana’s younger sister Raylin’s friend home at the time. “That’s what made her stop and rip it in reverse. She backed up probably six feet, and then Meg said she felt better. That’s when Melana felt something wet in her lap, and she looked down and there was blood squirting out of her leg.”

One of Melana’s friends ran to Eyer’s house and brought her dad, David, to the scene of the accident.

“The people we were with ran to get an adult,” Melana Eyer said. “They called 911, and everyone was super calm about it. Meg made a tourniquet with someone else helping her, and my dad was helping me by putting pressure on my leg. I ended up hitting a common femoral artery, so I was losing a lot of blood. At one point, I was gasping for air, because I was losing so much blood.”

For David Eyer III, the moment is still hard to think about.

“I was in the living room, and her friend came down and told me that they were impaled by a gate,” David said. “I first thought it was just her friend Meg. I ran up, and Melana was saying she was so sorry and didn’t want me to be mad at her. I went up to her and moved her hand, and you could see when her heart was beating, because it was just pumping blood. I put my hand over it and tried to keep her calm. Someone can say something doesn’t feel real, but at that time, I actually felt like it was a dream. My mind couldn’t process that this was actually happening.”

Waking up in the hospital

Melana doesn’t remember a lot after her father came to her side and Megan helped make tourniquets for them.

“They got Meg out first,” Rachael Eyer said. “They wanted to get an IV started on Melana, because she had lost a lot of blood. Eventually, they got her stable enough where they told us to get out of the way, and they started trying to pull her out. That might have been the hardest part to hear, because of how deep her voice was when she screamed.”

At the hospital, Rachael learned how perilous of a situation both Melana and Megan were in immediately following the accident.

“When we were in the emergency room, we were waiting,” Rachael said. “One of the trauma nurses said to us it was a freak accident, but that it was the best thing that Melana backed out, because when she did, the gate came out of both her and Meg. He said that was the best thing she could have done, because the gate itself was sitting on Meg’s femoral artery, and Melana’s femoral artery was laying on the gate. If they would have come and cut that open with a saw and pulled it out themselves, it could have easily killed them.”

There was additional concern for Melana, who is a type 1 diabetic.

“Whenever I got to the hospital, I ended up going into emergency surgery,” Melana said. “The next morning, they tried to get me out of bed, but I couldn’t even move my legs or anything to get out of bed. I couldn’t move at all. They didn’t know if there would be nerve damage or what the extent was to the injury. They were just worried about fixing the artery. It was up in the air how long it was going to take to walk — much less get back to basketball.”

Long road back

Altoona girls varsity basketball coach Chris Fleegle has known Melana as long as he’s held his position with the Lady Lions, and the news of Eyer’s accident hit him hard.

“Melana and her sister came to our basketball camp when I first got the job, and I can remember her from that,” Fleegle said. “I have seen her grow from when she was in sixth grade, into junior high and now as a senior — she’s the definition of family. She has a relationship with my daughter and works out with her, so it was heartbreaking for her and her family, because she’s worked so hard for everything she’s earned.”

Though Fleegle was more worried about Eyer as a person and her recovery, Melana was focused pretty early on the possibility of missing her senior season of basketball.

“Being in the hospital waiting was the hardest part,” Melana said. “Just sitting there not knowing what was going to happen was awful.”

To make matters worse, due to all the nerves involved, doctors were unable to give Eyer a clear outlook.

“The doctors actually told me I may or may not be back for this season,” Melana said. “They told me maybe midseason, but I think it was mostly me feeling it out as I was going to see what I could do. Whenever I got out of the hospital, I was slowly trying to build my muscle up, so I never really got a timeline. It was just me feeling it out.”

But her mother knew it would be sooner rather than later.

“With Melana, she’s still doing (physical therapy) but at least I can say, who she is as a person, she always tries to outdo herself,” Rachael said. “It was in her head that she was going to get better and be back for basketball if it was the last thing that she had to do. The people who do physical therapy with her can attest she’s a beast as far as getting back to the top of her game.”

Ready for tip-off

When Altoona takes the court for the first time this season in Pittsburgh on Saturday, Eyer will be on the court — and not in a ceremonial way. She’ll be starting and expected to play her normal minutes.

“I’m extremely impressed, but I’m not surprised,” Fleegle said. “When you look at the world we live in and kids and adults facing obstacles, your work ethic and how you overcome adversity is the difference between being successful and not being successful. When it comes to work ethic, Melana is one of those special ones that always continues to better herself, and I honestly believe the reason the recovery has been so quick is her will to be successful and her will to work hard at it to be able to be part of the season this year.”

Eyer has been practicing with the team and is nearing full strength.

“Things are going great,” Melana said. “I’m almost back to 100 percent. I’m still having some pain, but I’m almost completely back to 100 percent.”

The accident and nearly having everything she’s worked for taken away in an instant has led Melana to cherish every moment of the upcoming season.

“I have been playing in the fall league and been playing games the last few weeks,” Melana said. “I’m planning on starting the season. I’m very thankful, because whenever I was in the hospital, there was a nurse, and he coached softball. He told me his girls would complain about running two warm-up laps. He would tell them not to take that for granted, because there were so many people who would love to be in their position and able to walk, run and play sports. It taught me a big lesson to never complain about what I’m able to do and what I’m blessed with and how my body has recovered.”

More importantly to Melana, her friend is also nearly back to full health.

“Meg is pretty much recovered too,” Rachael said. “She still has a little bit of healing to do with her injuries, but she’s about healed up.”

Altoona’s girls basketball program has dealt with plenty of adversity the last few seasons and already had a mantra of not taking anything for granted.

“If you look at the past three years, being a senior in the Altoona program — you have to be careful,” Fleegle said. “Two years ago, we had Taylor Lane and Brooklyn Barron go out with ACL injuries. Last year, Jersey Hollabaugh went out midseason with an ACL injury. It’s one of those things that people in our program know every time you’re on that court, you’re playing and working like it might be the last opportunity you have a chance to play.”

Despite that, it’s something that never really crossed Rachael’s mind until it happened.

“Growing up in the Mill Run area, (our kids) lived on four-wheelers, side-by-sides and dirtbikes,” Rachael said. “They grew up riding them. They have always rode them, so for us to let them take them for a quick ride in the woods is nothing. From now on, we second guess that and wonder if it’s something they need to do, because anything can happen.”

So when Melana sat down to sign her letter of intent to play at Shippensburg last week with a clean bill of health ready to resume her playing career, her entire family took a little extra time to enjoy the moment.

“You take stuff for granted, and when stuff like that happens in your life, it makes you step back and think of all the little things,” David said. “And it makes it mean more.”