Like many seniors, Raye Anderson had been eagerly looking forward to her final year of classes at Laurel High School.
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“She got up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to head to school, and she jumped on her electric scooter,” says her father, Torrey Anderson.
It was just the second day of class, but Raye didn’t make it to school that day. The 17-year-old was hit by a truck at Laurel Yard Office Road and East Maryland while riding her scooter.
Her father arrived on scene just moments later.
“I jumped out of my truck, and the first thing I saw was a police officer giving my daughter chest compressions on the street. And I pretty much lost it,” Anderson says. “I thought she was gone."
Raye suffered multiple serious injuries—her brain left bleeding in three places, bruised lungs, a broken collarbone, and numerous lacerations.
She was flown to a hospital in Seattle and is slowly regaining some consciousness. It’s far from her first time spending time in a hospital.
“She's a fighter. She's been a fighter all her life. She's had 27 surgeries related to her medical condition,” her father says.
Raye was born with a cystic hygroma, a genetic defect that causes a fluid-filled sac or benign lymphatic malformation that most commonly develops in the neck or head.
She is well known in the Laurel community.
“She has impacted so many lives. She's just one of those people that you meet, and you can feel the love coming off her, and she's an amazing human being, and I'm so glad she's still here,” Torrey Anderson says.
Anderson says he is thankful for the support the community has shown.
And while Raye still has a long road of recovery ahead, she has started to wake up and was even able to communicate sign a message to her father.
“She's given me thumbs up, and she said I love you,” Anderson says.
A GoFundMe account has been set up to help Raye as she recovers in the hospital. Click here to donate.
