Young Catholic survives heart failure, amputation

Melissa Clement looking at going back to school, getting a new prosthesis

Published: March 16, 2015

By Alesia Schaefer
Rogers Correspondent

Courtesy Melissa Clement

Melissa Clement and her mother Doris enjoy some time together at the Red River Gorge State Park in Kentucky a few weeks after her Oct. 10 surgery.

Courtesy Melissa Clement

Melissa Clement and her mother Doris enjoy some time together at the Red River Gorge State Park in Kentucky a few weeks after her Oct. 10 surgery.

ROGERS — It was an ordinary day. Get up, go to class, eat lunch and meet friends for a picnic. But in an instant, the ordinary became extraordinary for 23-year-old Melissa Clement, whose life was forever changed by a series of events that occurred that day unlike any before it.

Clement, a former parishioner and student of St. Vincent de Paul School in Rogers, relies on the memory of others to fill in the blanks for some of the details that transpired that day, but she does remember the people who helped her and the key reason she is thankful.

She is alive.

Clement’s ordeal began July 31 on a blistering hot day in Lexington, Ky. She was headed to a picnic with her boyfriend, Sam Crocker, a first-year medical student at the University of Kentucky, and was looking forward to a few games of sand volleyball. Clement, a skilled volleyball player since high school, had also played for her alma mater, Hendrix College in Conway, before enrolling in the physician assistant program at Kentucky.

Although she felt a little tired, Clement played one match but a few minutes into the second match, she collapsed in the sand.

Clement was in heart failure.

Crocker and other medical students who were on the sidelines that day administered CPR to Clement for nine minutes as they awaited an ambulance to arrive from St. Joseph Hospital, located but a mile away from the park.

Clement’s mother, Doris, who was 10 hours away in Rogers when they received the call about their daughter, recounts the circumstances and marvels at what went right when everything was so horribly wrong.

“Melissa had the help of several skilled individuals that day. She was close to a Catholic hospital so she was given the rites of the anointing of the sick,” Doris Clement said. “The right people came along at the right time all along the way.”

“The night she came into the ER with Sam, she was given a 5 percent chance of survival. Most likely if someone had to go through what she did, we were told, that he/she might not recover, be in a vegetative state or could suffer brain damage.”

She was discharged from the hospital Aug. 22, three weeks after the episode occurred. Her diagnosis was that a virus dormant in her system had moved to her heart that day and caused heart failure.

Except her trials were not over. Three days later, she began running a fever and had to be admitted to the hospital again.

“Because of the reduced circulation in my leg there had been some tissue death. It’s called compartment syndrome,” Clement said, “and as my foot turned black and I underwent several procedures to remove the dead tissue, I knew there was a chance I was going to lose a part of my leg.”

After almost two months, Clement was at long last discharged. Nevertheless, her foot remained a concern. She decided to seek a second opinion on her leg and visited Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. The choice was obvious because of multiple family members she has living in the city.

It was here her fears were confirmed. She would need her right lower leg amputated.

On Oct. 10, Clement’s right leg was amputated just below the knee. She remained in the hospital another week and then spent four days in rehabilitation. Clement had reconstructive surgery March 10 so her prosthesis better fits her leg.

“It is a setback, but I am ready to move forward,” she said.

But how she would travel back and forth to St. Louis for her check-ups proved to be problematic.

That’s when another blessing presented itself to Clement in the form of “Wings of Hope,” a St. Louis-based organization that flies individuals needing medical care within a 500-mile radius of the city. For Clement, staying in Lexington where she had a strong support system was crucial and “Wings of Hope” made the impossible, possible.

“I have had to make over 12 trips for check-ups in St. Louis,” said Clement, who made the two-hour flight on a private six-seat aircraft.

The recovery process for Clement has been lengthy and the adjustments many, but the next step of being fitted with a prosthetic leg and regaining her mobility is for Clement a future with endless possibilities.

“Every day is a gift. I think this has made me stronger mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I have learned a lot about myself, my family and my friends during all of this,” said Clement reflecting on the past seven months. “I felt God best through the love and support of my friends and family. They have really kept me going day by day. I have kept my head high and had a positive attitude by looking forward to the future and by not taking life for granted.”