North Star player bounces back from injury

Taylor Warren of Hingham was walking around her room at Benefis Hospital in Great Falls Sunday, having been disconnected from the tubes that kept her alive earlier in the week. It was quite an accomplishment for the North Star High School 16-year-old. A few days earlier, her family was elated when she was able to squeeze their hands. An emotional roller-coaster for Taylor and her family started Feb. 14, when in a basketball game with Highwood, she took an elbow to her head. " I t was probably the wors t Valentine's Day our family will ever have," said her father, Carey Warren. EMTs suggested she go to Benefis East for treatment. Doctors said she had sustained a concussion, Carey Warren said. Taylor was taken home and went to bed. Her mother, Anne Warren, woke her up every hour to ensure she was OK. "At 3 a.m., she wouldn't wake up," Carey Warren said. Taylor and her mother went in the ambulance while her father followed in a car. Soon they arrived at Northern Montana Hospital. "Things were moving faster and faster," Carey Warren recalled. Dr. Carley Robertson, Northern Montana's emergency room physician on duty, began performing emergency surgery to ease the pressure on what was quickly determined to be a blood clot near the brain. She was in telephone communication throughout the operation with Dr. Paul Gorsuch, a Benefis surgeon. "She saved Taylor's life; there's no quest ion about i t ," said Carey Warren. "She is the greatest gal." "She bought Taylor some time so she could get to Great Falls," he said. "The whole emergency room staff at Havre is just the greatest," he said. Taylor would have been taken by helicopter to Benefis, but weather prevented that. Instead she was taken by ambulance to Benefis, where Dr. Gorsuch operated on her. Her sisters, Kaila and Megan, Rushed to the hospital from Helena, where they live. They held Taylor's hand after the surgery, asking her to squeeze. They were delighted when she did. Slowly she began to recover, her family at her bedside throughout the entire ordeal — except when Carey traveled to Havre to watch the 9C basketb a l l t o u r n ame n t , wh e r e Taylor's older brother, Kellan, was playing for North Star. His team will play in the challenge game tonight. North Star's girls team also advanced from the 9C tournament. They will play Chester- Josplin-Inverness in the opening game of the divisionals Thursday night. If things go well, they will have a special person in the stands to cheer them on. "We hope Taylor will be in the stands to watch the game," Carey Warren said. While she wasn't in the stands, she was supporting her team throughout her hospital stay. She kept up with the games as they progressed. "I knew she was right there next to our girls, helping them through this," said North Star head coach Brian Campbell. "She was a big part of our win Thursday night." Carry Warren said the family has been helped through its tough times by the friends from throughout the Hi-Line who have called, written and visited. "There is something special about small-town rural northern Montana," he said. Classmates, friends and neighbors have let Taylor know they are thinking about her. "Highwood people have been very supportive," he said. "Their sportsmanship has been tremendous." Sports Edito r George Ferguson contributed to this story.