Hope After Misfortune

Brave Daniela Can Now Eat and Drink Again

The girl (pictured with two of her sisters) is usually cheerful despite her severe disability.(Bild: Pressefoto Scharinger/Daniel Scharinger)

A four-year-old girl has been severely impaired following an accident two years ago. While playing with her two sisters on a farm in Waldkirchen am Wesen (Upper Austria), she became trapped in a roller blind and was deprived of oxygen for 40 minutes. A privately funded specialized therapy is showing results—but it’s costly for her parents. The rehabilitation facility assigned by the health insurance provider yielded no progress.

It was June 15, 2024: Daniela, then two years old, was playing with two of her three sisters on her parents’ farm in Waldkirchen am Wesen. When the little girl climbed onto the automatic wall-mounted roller blind (a heavy, roll-up curtain) in the barn, it suddenly started moving and trapped the girl between metal bars.

When Daniela’s father rescued her, she had stopped breathing. For ten minutes, desperate attempts were made to resuscitate the two-year-old. Only then did her pupils react. Daniela was placed in an induced coma for two days at Kepler University Hospital Linz (KUK).

When she woke up, she smiled at her mom, who was relieved. But then came the devastating news: The little girl had been without oxygen for 40 minutes and suffered hypoxic brain damage. “The doctors’ prognosis was dire. Daniela couldn’t even eat or drink; she had to be fed through tubes,” her mother said. Her body was completely stiff, and she had severe epileptic seizures.

During acute rehabilitation in Salzburg, her mother learned about a specialized therapy in Bratislava, which the parents ultimately paid for privately. “After just one week, she was suddenly able to open her hands.”

Further therapy sessions at their own expense at specialized facilities in their home country followed. “She’s now eating and drinking. She can hold things in her hand and babble. The epileptic seizures are gone, too,” her mom says happily.

The officially assigned rehab facilities apparently didn’t lead to any progress. “Unfortunately, only individual therapy helps her—not group therapy.”

This year alone, the family has already spent 20,000 euros on this. The next therapy session begins at the end of August. Jasmin: “That will cost 8,000 euros plus 2,500 for lodging. But we’re doing everything we can so that she might one day be able to lead a more independent life.”