IOWA CITY, Iowa (WQAD) — A teen landed in the intensive care unit in Iowa City after attempting a dance trend going viral around the internet.
Eighteen-year-old Anna Worden says all parents and teens need to hear her story.
Worden just graduated from Pleasant Valley this past year.
After her accident, she had to be airlifted to Iowa City for emergency treatment.
“For us to get to this point you see today has been a long road. Its hard on all of us,” says Anna’s dad Mike Worden as his daughter attempts to walk a few steps around her hospital room.
It is not where Worden pictured she’d end up simply because of what happened on Monday night while she was driving around town with friends.
“We were over by the round-about and I thought it would be a fun idea to do the Kiki Challenge,” explains Anna.
Worden has been dancing since she was 3 years old, so she wanted to try out the newest dance fad going viral online called the “Kiki Challenge.”
Thousands of fans worldwide have been posting videos of themselves jumping out of moving cars dancing to a Drake song. The dance challenge started in late June when a social media star posted a choreographed video and told people to learn the moves.
“I tried and the last thing I remember was opening the door. So apparently I got out and tripped and fell and hit my head,” Worden said.
Still unconscious, Worden was rushed to the hospital where she was airlifted to Iowa City.
“I had five minutes to give her a kiss and not know what was going to happen. I will always remember that,” said Mike Worden.
Worden had a fracture in her skull, blood clots in her ear and bleeding in her brain.
“When we got here and I finally gained consciousness in the ICU, that’s when it hit me like, wow, I’m actually in the University of Iowa hospitals because I tried to do some little challenge everyone’s doing now, and I’m the one that got majorly hurt,” Anna Worden said.
The girl who was graceful on her feet is now re-learning to walk.
She also had a lesson to teach.
“Be more careful about the challenges and fads that are going around. It may seem fun, and it may seem easy, but at the same too, they could be so dangerous.”
Anna Worden is hoping to be discharged from the hospital on Monday. When she goes back home to Bettendorf, the road to recovery is still far from over. She will be doing outpatient physical therapy closer to home.
