Kendal Levine, a 20-year-old missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was struck by a car in Australia on Friday. Levine was driving in the city of Canberra when she decided to get out of the car to take a picture of a double rainbow. While she was walking back to the car, another vehicle struck Levine, critically injuring her.
Deseret News reports that Levine has not suffered from any broken bones, but that doctors had placed her into a medically induced coma once they found bleeding in the lungs and head trauma. Doctors say that she did not suffer any swelling in her brain. Doctors had taken Levine in for surgery, and according to KUTV, the young missionary is stable but still in a coma. Doctors are waiting for her to wake up from the coma on her own so that they can further assess her condition.
Levine grew up in Stansbury Park, Utah, and graduated from Stansbury High School in Tooele where she was a four-sport athlete, playing basketball, soccer, softball and ran track. Of Levine serving a mission, KUTV quotes Melody Levine, the missionary’s mother, saying, “she’d always wanted to go.”
Levine has been serving for the past year in the Australia Sydney South Mission and forfeited the rest of her basketball scholarship to Casper College in Wyoming in order to do so.
Levine’s family moved to Hawaii shortly after she left for Australia. The Stansbury Park community raised enough money to fly the missionary’s parents to Australia, where they arrived on Sunday night. Her parents have reported that Levine is still in a coma but that she responded to their voices when they entered the room.
Anyone wishing to donate to help the Levine family with medical expenses can go to any Wells Fargo bank and donate to “Melody and Dave Levine, Tooele Home Branch 84074, living in Hawaii.” People can also donate straight to a Paypal account at [email protected], set up in the missionary’s father’s name, David Levine.
