CEDAR FALLS - Everything about Lindsey Morris exudes positivity. The 17-year old loves to laugh and can work a room like Seinfeld.

But this summer has forced even her to get serious, if only for a moment.

"To me, it's just a miracle," said the Cedar Falls High School senior-to-be.

"It really hits me when I'm in church or something like that: I get a second chance at life.

"I was sitting there, almost on my deathbed."

Recalling her fall

Morris won't soon forget the sound she heard on the evening of June 2, early in a regional final soccer match against Marshalltown.

In a tussle over a loose ball, Morris, an all-conference forward, leapt, then collided, with an opposing player. The opponents met with enough force to leave Morris on the ground in a heap.

"I jumped in the air," Morris noted, "and she kicked me in the leg, and I heard this huge sound - the clanking of my shin-guard and the breaking of my leg.

"I fell down and was in immense pain. It felt like all the tendons and muscles in the back of my leg were in a ball and were throbbing."

Some onlookers described the collision as rather innocuous.

Others suspected the worst.

"We were pretty depressed that night," explained Dan List, Morris' basketball coach.

"Then, later, what you thought was severe at the time (the broken tibia) was kind of a minor thing. It made it a scary situation.

"(Now) there's no question she'll be an inspiration for the girls."

Tense moments

Morris broke her leg on a Monday.

By Tuesday, she quit breathing.

Due to the trauma her leg endured, the 17-year-old had developed a fat embolism that worked its way into her lungs.

Soon, medical personnel at Waterloo's Covenant Medical Center put Morris on a BiPap Machine - a form of life-support - which helps push air into patients' lungs.

"I begged them and said, 'We need to go to Mayo,'" recalled Morris' mother, Debbie.

Soon, three intensive care unit nurses and a doctor had rushed 115 miles from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., to be at Morris' side.

She didn't eat again for eight days. And, she would spend nine total days in ICU units.

"On Thursday, the doctor told us at one in the morning that they may have to induce her into a coma," Debbie Morris noted. "The doctors asked us if we wanted to say goodbye to her before they put her in a coma for several weeks."

The teenager's lungs were in "total white-out," due to Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Most patients who suffer from ARDS hear grim prognoses.

Making matters worse, Morris was also found to be suffering from pulmonary hypertension, causing her heart to beat nearly three times faster than normal.

"The doctors said it was like she was running a marathon," said Debbie, "and breathing through a straw. Her heartbeat was 158 beats, like you're on a treadmill. It stayed there longer than a week; The doctors didn't know how long she could do it - I was on my knees."

All the while, doctors kept a watchful eye on the embolism in Lindsey's lungs. Her embolism case was just the second that Mayo's 30-year chief doctor had ever seen in a teenager.

"I said, 'What if that (embolism) hits her heart?' They said, 'It'll be quick,'" Debbie recalled, looking strikingly composed.

The power of positivity

While Debbie and Rick Morris could barely contain their worst fears, Lindsey tried to supply levity.

She always seemed to joke about her leg casts, for instance.

"My leg is gonna be a chicken leg, it's so little," she noted of her atrophied limb. "I'm gonna have a sweet tan-line, My shin is gonna be flourescent white!"

Her daughter's unflinching optimism - Lindsey merrily checked text messages, even when she couldn't speak - never ceased to amaze Debbie.

"Lindsey's optimistic, even in her most dire moment," the mother explained. "Even when she was on life-support, it was all about what color her cast was.

"She was still joking with friends. How can you be joking with your friends when you're next to death?

"If that embolism moved just four inches she was a goner. She didn't fathom that."

While Lindsey's joking gave her parents strength, so did the community they had left behind.

While Debbie and Rick spent their days at the Mayo Clinic and Rochester's Ronald McDonald House, their neighbors in Cedar Falls, like Brenda Patterson, ceaselessly helped care for the family's other children at home.

"My husband and I have five children," Debbie explained. "We left for two weeks on an emergency and the rest of this town took over. It's very humbling."

Well-wishers from as far away as Houston, Texas, contacted the Morris family. Hundreds of concerned acquaintances emailed the family via the Morris' online journal, at caringbridge.com.

"I know I sound like a Bible-beater, and I don't mean to," said Debbie, "but I truly believe that all the prayers from this community helped.

"They say there's power in numbers. I believe it."

The road to recovery

In the end, her sports background may have saved Lindsey Morris.

Since the multi-sport standout was in top physical condition before her injury, Morris didn't require an induced coma, due to the fact her body didn't become as taxed as most patients would in a similar situation. Her body eventually absorbed the embolism, and she was released from the Mayo Clinic on June 12 - as soon as she could sleep through the night without the aid of a ventilator.

"They said every athletic activity she had done prepared her for that day," Debbie explained.

"(Doctors) said anyone 45 would've been gone."

Actually, those physicians may have overestimated. On the very same day Morris was released from the Mayo Clinic, a 22-year-old St. Ansgar man, Cody Borcherding, died of virtually the same set of complications, in the same hospital in Rochester.

So Lindsey Morris is well aware of her new lease on life.

And the 17-year-old said she's not about to take things for granted.

"To live through that was just a blessing from God. I honestly could have died at any moment," Lindsey said on Monday, while preparing for a check-up at the Mayo Clinic today.

"God worked a miracle on me when I was lying in that bed. He has plans for me.

"I get a second chance at life - and I want to make it count."

Contact Kelly Beaton at (319) 291-1456 or kelly.beaton@wcfcourier.com