NEED TO KNOW

• In January 2025, Dr. Kyle Nagle's daughter Sylvie was practicing with her cross-country ski team when she skied off the edge of a trail and down a 20-foot embankment
• Sylvie suffered a traumatic brain injury and was hospitalized for a month
• Now, one year later, she is back on her skis and heading back to competition

On the night of Jan. 22, 2025, Dr. Kyle Nagle's daughter Sylvie was practicing with her cross-country skiing team near Snoqualmie Pass in Washington. As she skied down a downhill forest road, somehow the unthinkable happened.

"She skied off the edge of the trail and down a 20-foot embankment," her dad, who is an orthopedic and sports medicine doctor at Seattle Children's Hospital, tells PEOPLE. "Her teammates and coach stabilized her and called 911."

At the time, the 14-year-old was non-responsive, but breathing on her own. Her teammates' parents and her coaches helped EMS onto the trail to extricate her and bring her to the trailhead. From there, she was transferred to an ambulance, intubated and driven to Snoqualmie Pass, where she was airlifted by helicopter to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

"Eventually, after multiple scans, we learned that she had a few bleeds in her brain and severe diffuse axonal injury, a shearing injury of the neurons throughout areas of her brain," explains Dr. Nagle.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.  

Dr. Nagle first heard about the accident when he returned home from work. He received multiple calls from parents on her team, but didn't know much other than she'd fallen down an embankment.

"My first reaction was feeling a deep pit of worry and fear in my stomach," he says. "Immediately, I tried to reach out to her mom, my wife Ann, who was gathering with her book club at the time. I also started mobilizing to pack a quick overnight bag and headed to the hospital."

He and his wife ended up beating Sylvie to the hospital. They were then able to meet her in the emergency room, and one of them was always with her while she was in the hospital. "It was a terrifying night and next few days," admits Dr. Nagle.

Sylvie was intubated for a couple of days and was still unresponsive once she was extubated. About a week after her accident, she was able to point at something if she wanted it, and a few days later, she was able to speak a few "very soft" words. During the second week, Sylvie was able to take a few steps out of bed with support from her parents or the nurses and physical therapists.

"The staff at Harborview were so supportive and present during those first few days when no one really knew what the outcome was going to be or even if she was going to wake up, speak, feed herself or walk again, let alone have her usual personality," says Dr. Nagle. "They were very attentive at the time to keep her comfortable, or to comfort us as parents as we managed our own emotions in the midst of what was going on."

After a week and a half at Harborview, Sylvie was transferred to the Seattle Children's Inpatient Rehabilitation. Dr. Nagle remembers being "very excited" about that step, since it indicated that Sylvie was doing well and could participate in rehab activities. It was also meaningful for the worried dad, who worked and trained at the same hospital.

They went on to spend another two and a half weeks at Seattle Children's, where Sylvie relearned to walk, wash her hair, get dressed on her own, speak more clearly and process information again. She had at least three hours of intensive therapy a day and worked very hard to regain her abilities.

"The week after we arrived at Children’s, she started forming new memories and progressed from there. The Inpatient Rehabilitation team (doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech therapists, neuropsychologists) were also outstanding — caring, competent and patient," says Dr. Nagle. "I cannot begin to thank them enough."

"They supported us as parents as we tried to do our best to help her with her 'homework' and process our experience of her injury and our worries about how her recovery would go," he continues. "Being on that side of the bed really made me appreciate what Children's can do and made me proud to work for this organization."

Sylvie ended up being hospitalized for a full month and missing five full weeks of eighth grade. Once she returned home, she went to school part-time and then gradually increased her in-person classes over the next month.

Dr. Nagle remembers the time as "unimaginably hard." He says he and his wife got through the uncertainty by supporting Sylvie and being there for each other, as well as their son Sam at home.

"There was fear. There was worry. There was grief in all its stages," he says. "There were moments of joy as she accomplished a variety of firsts — including the time in the hospital when she nonverbally communicated with us that she wanted to get into her wheelchair to go to the skybridge to look outside at the mountains, and then flipping her hair proudly and sassily with one hand as we figured out the game of charades and exclaimed she was amazing!"

"The uncertainty of knowing how she would progress and recover from this injury was probably the most difficult part," explains Dr. Nagle. "We had to constantly remind ourselves to believe that she was getting better and would continue to get better. We had to hope, and sometimes force ourselves to hope, that recovery would happen."

After she returned home, Sylvie had many follow-up appointments at the hospital. She went through physical therapy, occupational therapy and neuropsychology, amongst others. She also had eye surgery during the summer to correct double vision that was a result of the injury. But thankfully, she was home with her parents and brother, and able to eat home-cooked meals.

Throughout her entire journey, Sylvie looked forward to getting back on her skis. In fact, one of the things she missed the most about the last year was being unable to be outside on the slopes with her friends.

"She always wanted to get back on her skis. She loves skiing," says Dr. Nagle. "It's probably a gift that she doesn't remember the fall or the descent preceding it, because she doesn't have as much fear around the activity."

"She loves hanging out with her teammates, being outside in the cold and improving her skills. One of the things she missed most about last winter and this summer and fall was not being able to train with her friends and play sports with them," he explains.

Dr. Nagle describes Sylvie's first ski outing as "interesting." He says the trip was full of a lot of gratitude, mixed with uncertainty about how it would go.

"She was a little bit like a young deer finding its legs — a Bambi," he says. "But even the next ski was better. She is continuing to work on getting her technique and endurance back. It's a journey to get back into shape and regain strength and balance after any injury, and this was a bad one."

"I think we are trying to stay focused on the small steps, process goals and what we (Sylvie and us as parents) can do to help get Sylvie toward her bigger goals. This is a similar process that any athlete - Paralympic, Olympic or recreational — goes through during recovery from an injury," explains Dr. Nagle.

In March, Dr. Nagle will be traveling to Italy to support the USA Paralympic Nordic Skiing athletes as the head doctor. Although Sylvie won't be joining him in Milan this year, he brings with him a new lived experience after enduring his daughter's medical journey.

"We've thought about it in the past because it would be such a unique experience for our kids," Dr. Nagle says of bringing Sylvie and Sam to the Paralympics. "When I travel with the team, I am usually so busy taking care of the team and helping them out that I don't have a lot, if any, downtime for those couple weeks, so I wouldn't actually be able to spend a lot of time with my family while I'm working with the team there.

"Sylvie would love to watch the races, but she's got school, friends and her own 15-year-old life to focus on at this point."

This year, Sylvie is back in competition alongside her teammates. Dr. Nagle explains that he's not feeling much nervousness about her return, since her accident was so unusual. "I want her to continue to be physically active without worrying about getting injured," he says, adding that they are still in the process of Sylvie gradually getting back to her pre-accident level.

"I am more concerned about wanting her to feel proud of her performance and progress in this journey," explains Dr. Nagle. "I want her to recognize all the steps she has taken and continues to take in her recovery and not get despondent about where her abilities are right now, or discouraged to the point of giving up something she loves."

The proud dad explains that he knows coming back from injury is hard, and he doesn't want his daughter to beat herself up about the outcome of her races. Instead, he wants her to feel the accomplishment of "working to improve" and embracing challenges with grace.

"It's those life lessons that I hope she can cultivate while not getting too emotionally beat down by the challenges along the way," he adds. "She is building back her strength and confidence and exhibiting grace and grit. It's really a joy to see your kid find something that they love — and Sylvie loves skiing, her friends and her team."

Read the original article on People