‘We’re just in the unknown’: 21-year-old mother is still in a coma following New Hampshire crash
Dakota Ordway missed her daughter's first birthday last week.
Dakota Ordway should have been with her baby daughter last week celebrating the little girl’s first birthday. Instead, she’s spent the last couple of weeks unconscious in a hospital.Ordway was listed in critical condition after her car was found almost completely underwater and upside down in the Merrimack River in Concord, New Hampshire on Oct. 8, state police said. Doctors aren’t sure how well the 21-year-old from Pembroke, New Hampshire will recover, according to her uncle, Dominick DiMassino Jr.“It’s just a shock to us all,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s just really hard to imagine something like this could happen.”Ordway was on her way to a friend’s house after finishing her shift at her waitressing job, DiMassino said.The family doesn’t know yet what caused the crash, according to DiMassino, and they’re hoping perhaps witnesses will come forward.“We’re just in the unknown,” he said.
The crash remains under investigation, according to state Trooper Jacob Plourde.
Since being admitted to the hospital, Ordway has opened her eyes a few times, according to DiMassino, calling it a “big difference” from when she was first brought in. It’s a recovery that doctors are taking a day at a time.
“I was talking to the nurse and she said she’s pretty much in a comatose state,” he said.
The family hopes she’ll make a full recovery; the doctors aren’t sure and have said they anticipate Ordway will have some sort of loss of function when she regains consciousness, DiMassino said.
While she’s in the hospital, various relatives have taken on the care of Ordway’s daughter, Stella.
Stella has visited her mom in the hospital, too, according to DiMassino.
“We’ve been in there trying to stimulate Dakota by being in her presence with the baby,” he said. “The brain is a wonderful thing, and we’re thinking that she’s hearing things and she can’t respond.”
A GoFundMe fundraiser was set up to help Ordway’s parents with expenses related to traveling to the hospital on a regular basis, plus lost time from work and other needs.
It says Ordway is at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon. Her parents also live in Pembroke, DiMassino said. It’s just over an hour’s drive each way.
Thinking of how his niece was before the crash, DiMassino described her as an athletic young woman who is also “a caring mother” who loves to throw a football or kick a soccer ball around during family get-togethers.
“She’s just a nice girl,” her uncle said.
