This teen almost died in a crash. Her mom says a special hospital team saved her

It was during the early hours of a cold February morning when Athalie Smith was airlifted to the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, where she would stay for the next 7½ weeks in one of the province's only Level 1 trauma centres. 

The 16-year-old had been ejected from a car during a single-vehicle crash in Pictou County. She was left with life-threatening injuries including a broken neck, ribs and lumbar, frostbite all over her body, and a bleeding kidney and spleen.

But according to her mother, Krista Fulton Smith, it was thanks to a new pilot program at the hospital that her daughter was able to survive.

"We're going on five months, and she's home. I'm gonna cry," said Fulton Smith in tears. "She went to prom last night, where she walked. She's walking without a leg brace. She's walking without a walker.

"She had a smile on her face and she looked absolutely beautiful." 

The pilot program, called the trauma consult service, launched in October 2022 and it's here to stay, according to Dan Cashen, provincial director of Trauma Nova Scotia.

The service is meant to ensure that trauma patients receive care from physicians and nurses who specialize in trauma. So far, it has six physicians and three nurses, along with other casual nurses who fill in from time-to-time.

Traditionally, trauma specialists would only care for a patient admitted to the QEII in order to perform a resuscitation or urgent care. Then the patient would be transferred to whatever unit was necessary, depending on their injuries. 

Now, the trauma team follows the patient to their respective unit and cares for them until the moment they leave the hospital. 

"The biggest difference comes from us being able to co-ordinate care across those services to make sure that nothing is being forgotten," said Cashen. "We can take a more fulsome approach to the patient at the centre of the care and make sure that the patient is receiving all the best care from all of these different services." 

Dr. Robert Green is the senior medical director with Trauma Nova Scotia and was one of Athalie Smith's trauma physicians.

"We follow patients and their families longitudinally, and they become our kind of partners," said Green. "So there's a real bond that we found that we're really invested in getting our patients back to where they need to be. To get home and back to their lives." 

Both Cashen and Green told CBC News that the consult service has been incredibly positive so far. They said it's helping to provide better patient care and outcomes, getting patients home sooner, and opening up more hospital beds.

"We're certainly thriving in the health-care system that, you know, certainly has its pressure," said Green.