Submitted Photo Tyanna Weeks is shown in her high school senior photo, taken by Jenna Andrysiak in November of 2023, prior to the car crash that occurred in January.

Editor’s note: Second of a two part story about Tyanna Weeks of Minot, who is recovering from injuries sustained in a vehicle crash in January.

Tyanna Weeks was 18 years old when her vehicle was crashed into by an impaired driver heading the wrong way on a state highway last Jan. 31. Her journey to recovery has been long and painful but full of hope as well.

“It’s encouraging too, though, to see her strength, see her push forward and just her determination to heal,” said Brianna Weeks, Tyanna Weeks’ mother.

After the crash, Tyanna Weeks spent three months at Craig Hospital in the Denver suburb of Englewood, Colorado. The hospital specializes in brain injuries and neurorehabilitation.

“There’s a scoring method that they use for brain injuries with somebody who’s unconscious, and she had scored very low on that,” Brianna Weeks said. “When you read the documents, it did not look very good for her.”

Despite this, Brianna Weeks never gave up in hoping and praying for her daughter’s recovery.

“I don’t think I ever heard or was willing to hear that there were low chances for her to make it or anything like that. It was something I just never accepted. Maybe I turned my ears off to it,” Brianna Weeks said. “I just don’t think that anybody ever gave up. There were tons of prayers. Nobody pictured what it would be like to be without her, what would happen next without her. I think we all just took each moment and just kept looking forward.”

Although Tyanna Weeks was not technically in a coma, she was heavily sedated initially while her body healed from enormous injuries, and it took around one month after the accident for her to fully embody awareness again.

“When they pulled all the meds and everything away from her to get her to wake up, it definitely took time. Even though she would open up an eye or something like that, she still wasn’t really there, still wasn’t processing anything,” Brianna Weeks said.

Milestones

The lift of a finger was a huge milestone for Tyanna Weeks and her loved ones during this stage in her recovery.

“They kept saying, ‘Hold up a finger if you can hear us,’ and she just hadn’t done it,” Brianna Weeks said. “And then finally, that finger just shot up and it was just the greatest thing in the world.”

The time between the crash and the lift of her daughter’s finger felt like forever to Brianna Weeks but was a beacon of hope for the healing to come.

“I’ve probably become more appreciative of the small things and the small hurdles we’ve gone through,” Brianna Weeks said.

She also was able to share in a more traditional parenting milestone when Tyanna Weeks was presented with her high school diploma from Bishop Ryan Catholic School while at Craig Hospital.

The president of Bishop Ryan, Father Jadyn Nelson, had reached out to Brianna and Tyanna Weeks to discuss Tyanna’s graduation from the high school.

“He’s like, ‘I hear Tyanna’s not going to make it home for graduation’, and I said, ‘Yeah, it’s been really hard on us,’ and he said, ‘That’s okay, because we’re going to bring graduation to here,’” Brianna Weeks said, recalling her phone call with Nelson.

“I had no idea what he meant in that,” Brianna Weeks said.

Bishop Ryan Principal Tanya Steckler, Nelson, friends and family, and the Craig hospital staff presented Tyanna Weeks with her diploma last May and helped throw a special graduation ceremony for her to participate in.

In a heartwarming video shared by Bishop Ryan, Tyanna Weeks was wearing a purple graduation gown as she walked down the hospital bridge hallway to receive her diploma, surrounded by loved ones, balloons and Bishop Ryan banners.

“For him and the principal and some friends and stuff to be able to come down and surprise her that way, she knew nothing about it. So when you watch that video and you see her walking across that bridge, she had no idea,” Brianna Weeks said.

“She’s worked her whole life so hard for all of this,” Brianna Weeks said about her daughter’s graduation. Tyanna Weeks was an excellent student and had taken college credit courses throughout high school to keep herself ahead of the curve and prepare for university study.

Additionally, Tyanna Weeks also was a skilled student athlete, sporting the number eight on her Bishop Ryan volleyball jerseys.

Before the crash, Tyanna Weeks had planned on attending the University of Mary in Bismarck this fall. She already had been enrolled and was looking to explore the medical field. She previously had been working at Trinity Hospital as a dietary aide and had been driving home from work the night of the crash.

“It’s still her dream to attend the University of Mary and I don’t think we’re too far off from that. I just think it could be a year or two before she gets there,” Brianna Weeks said.

“It’s been hard on her,” she added. “She was disappointed that she couldn’t go off to college and it was really hard to see all of her friends who she was going to go to college with, for them to continue on and her have to stay back. So that’s been hard emotionally.”

Healing

After her time at Craig Hospital, Tyanna Weeks was transferred to another brain injury rehabilitation facility in Omaha, Nebraska, for about six weeks. This facility focuses more on helping patients relearn the necessary tools for independence.

“I mean, really, she’s relearned everything. She has relearned how to eat food, to walk, to communicate with people,” Brianna Weeks said. “There’s going to be modifications that’ll have to be made in order for her to be able to live independently, but I think in time it’ll happen, absolutely. She’s very resilient.”

Brianna Weeks believes her daughter is motivated to keep working hard at her recovery because she knows she’ll get there.

“Ever since she’s woken up and been able to verbally communicate with us, she’s had a great sense of humor. She loves making people laugh. She’s a real positive person,” Brianna Weeks said.

Tyanna Weeks was able to leave the rehabilitation center and come back to her home in Minot mid-July.

“It was just kind of time to come home to her family and peers and all that and just have that familiar kind of support surrounding her, which I think has only helped even more in her recovery,” Brianna Weeks said.

Not only was the accident hard on Brianna and Tyanna Weeks, it was hard on Tyanna’s siblings as well.

Tyanna Weeks has two younger siblings – a brother, Riley, 17, who’s a senior in high school, and sister, Brynlee, 11, sixth grade.

“Their sister never came home that night and in a way they lost their mom for a few months, too, so that was hard on them,” Brianna Weeks said. “It was awful not having the family together.”

Once their big sister came home, the family dynamics picked up where they left off.

“It’s like they didn’t skip a beat. Tyanna got home and they talked and interacted with her the same way,” Brianna Weeks said. “I hadn’t felt such peace and comfort in such a long time. And I recognized that right away, like, ‘my whole family is under the same roof. We’re all safe. We’re all together.’”

Gratitude

Appreciating each moment and each day has become a huge part of Brianna Weeks’ life and her children’s lives.

“Anybody’s life can change in the blink of an eye. That can be a scary thing so you just have to be grateful for each day that you have together with your loved ones,” she said.

Brianna Weeks hopes people will be inspired by her daughter’s story to act when witnessing impaired or erratic driving on the road or when hearing about friends and acquaintances talking about driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs.

“I hope more people are willing to step up and do something about impaired driving,” Brianna Weeks said. “It might not be you but it might be somebody that you love a whole bunch.”

Brianna Weeks has been overwhelmingly touched by the outpouring of love and support from Minot and the surrounding communities that her family has received during her daughter’s recovery.

“Everybody’s love just poured out all at once. And I would have never imagined it. I really wouldn’t have,” Brianna Weeks said. “I don’t know how to explain it. Everybody, every little town that you can think of, all the schools, families, people that had never even met her who had read the story, everyone just wanted to help.”