NOT EVEN LIGHTNING STOPS HER.Byline: Lee Barnathan University Beat Kaylee Whitfield has experienced lightning racing through her body and causing her heart to stop beating. But believe it or not, she says her recent knee injuries were more devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. . ``I don't think about lightning,'' said Whitfield, a junior forward on the USC An abbreviation for U.S. Code. women's soccer team. ``My mom gets nervous whenever it's raining. . . . But blowing out your knees is a terrible, terrible thing.'' Of course, knee injuries happen far more often than being struck by lightning, so Whitfield has no problem telling the story. It was cloudy with rain threatening at the softball softball, variant of baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Invented (1888) in Chicago as an indoor game, it was at various times called indoor baseball, mush ball, playground ball, kitten ball, and, because it was also played by women, ladies' fields in Orange. Whitfield and several teammates were practicing when it began to rain, so they stood under a tree. The next thing Whitfield remembers was her mother shaking her, imploring im·plore v. im·plored, im·plor·ing, im·plores v.tr. 1. To appeal to in supplication; beseech: implored the tribunal to have mercy. 2. her to say something. Whitfield wanted to say, ``What happened?'' but it came out unintelligible UNINTELLIGIBLE. That which cannot be understood. 2. When a law, a contract, or will, is unintelligible, it has no effect whatever. Vide Construction, and the authorities there referred to. . ``I was so cold. I was shivering,'' she said. Lightning had struck the tree, gone through the trunk and through Whitfield and seven teammates. Since Whitfield was touching teammates at that moment, she became part of the circuit, so she had no exit wounds as other players had. She spent about four days in the hospital. Her side effects Side effects Effects of a proposed project on other parts of the firm. were constant fatigue, shooting pains through her arms and an X-ray of tree branches on her chest. The branches disappeared after about a month. Her fatigue lasted six months, during which it was difficult to focus in school. The arm pains, which she said felt like a severely sprained ankle A sprained ankle, also known as a ankle sprain, ankle injury or ankle ligament injury, is a common medical condition where one or more of the ligaments of the ankle is torn or partially torn. , spread through her arms, also making concentration difficult. ``It took a lot longer for some of the girls to come back to school,'' Whitfield said. ``It took me a month to get over it emotionally: `Oh my gosh That could've happened to me.' '' The reason it didn't, Whitfield believes, is her inner drive to overcome adversity, which stems from her competitiveness. Whitfield started playing soccer at age 7 in the Orange Junior Soccer Club. She played goalie her first season, but that team was so good, she hardly faced any shots. Once the team built a commanding lead, Whitfield's coach (also her father), would let her play forward. Scoring goals became like an addiction. ``It's a great feeling, let me tell you. A great rush of adrenaline,'' she said. ``The team gets excited. The crowd goes crazy.'' Whitfield felt the rush numerous times at El Modena High, scoring 91 goals and earning Southern Section Division II Offensive Player of the Year honors in 1996. Lightning was well in her past, but her biggest tests came last year. She tore her left ACL See access control list. 1. ACL - Access Control List. 2. ACL - Association for Computational Linguistics. 3. ACL - A Coroutine Language. A Pascal-based implementation of coroutines. ["Coroutines", C.D. in the spring of 1998. Then she tore her right one in the Trojans' first match. The first injury was unnerving un·nerve tr.v. un·nerved, un·nerv·ing, un·nerves 1. To deprive of fortitude, strength, or firmness of purpose. 2. To make nervous or upset. to her. She feared surgery and felt very frustrated when she couldn't walk for a month. She was in rehabilitation rehabilitation: see physical therapy. for six. Then she had to do it again. ``That was devastating,'' she said. But Whitfield is back and impressing everyone around her. USC coach Jim Millinder said in the media guide he hoped Whitfield would be ready. Whitfield has played in USC's first 10 matches and has one assist. ``To go through two ACL reconstructions, a lot of kids would've given up,'' Millinder said. ``A lot of kids don't return to form after one ACL (injury). . . . There's three or four kids I'd want to be my daughter. She's one of them.'' CAPTION(S): photo PHOTO USC's Kaylee Whitfield survived two ACL injuries and being struck by lightning. Daily News File Photo |
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