Warning: the following story and accompanying video contain graphic content. Reader and viewer discretion advised.
TELL CITY, Ind. (WEHT)- A Tell City family is back home after they say a freak accident landed them in the hospital on Halloween night. Ann Kessinger and her two kids were driving home on Highway 60 after trick-or-treating in Lewisport, Kentucky when an oncoming car hit a deer. The impact threw the deer through Kessinger’s Honda Mini Van windshield.
“It bent the steering wheel back and ripped out the entire dash along the way. It broke out all of the windows on the left side and my back windshield,” Kessinger says.
Kessinger says the impact knocked her out.
“My kids were still conscious, which was very scary for them,” Kessinger says.
Kessinger’s son, Lincoln, sat behind the drivers seat and took the brunt of the glass and suffered a brain bleed.
“I could not open my eyes, It was hard,” he says.
“Luckily none of us suffered a spinal injury. I remember wiggling my toes in the helicopter, trying to make sure that my legs were working okay,” Kessinger says.
The kids were put into an ambulance and taken to an Owensboro hospital, then airlifted to Louisville to be with their mother.
“Definitely the worst few hours of my life…just not knowing where my kids were,” says Kessinger.
Kessinger’s daughter, Summer, suffered a skull fracture and deep cuts on her forehead. Kessinger has a concussion, a broke arm and facial fractures.
“I could not open my eyes for several hours, probably like 10 hours after the accident, beware just so swollen, because of the glass and stuff.
Although the family is recovering, Kessinger says they are not out of the woods yet. Lincoln had a piece of glass in his eye, and Kessinger says doctors are not sure how bad the injury is.
“He will have to have checkups monthly until he is like a teenager,” Kessinger says.
Kessinger and her husband hope to have the kids back in school by next week.
