Donate to Cover Karla's Life-Saving Flight

Please help Karla, the families insurance will not pay for the Flight for Life which cost $67,583.23

Karla Smith and her son Tharles Smith, who turns 18 in October, were quarreling the night of June 10 about the family’s wish to move him into another home, Tharles had not been following the house rules, court documents relate from other interviews. That night, Tharles waited until everyone in the home went to sleep, retrieved a knife with an 8-inch blade from a magnetic holder, went into his mother’s room, leapt on her and stabbed her in her upper left back.

“Why did you punch me?” Karla recalled asking as she woke. She believed her son had punched her.

“No, you actually have a knife in your back,” Tharles reportedly answered. “I stabbed you.”

Karla was flown to Campbell County Health in Gillette, Wyoming, with the knife still protruding from her back, she recalled.

The attack and police response traumatized her 19-year-old daughter, who has autism, Karla said. The teen awoke to police shining flashlights while a knife was still jutting from her mother’s back.

At the hospital, doctors wondered if they’d have to perform surgery to remove the knife.

But Campbell County Health surgeon Jake Rinker was able to pull it out, Karla recalled.

It had plunged through her scapula, broken two ribs and punctured her lung, she said. Karla said a portion of the blanket that had been covering her went in with it, so doctors had to cut the fabric out.

Rinker told police that the blade went two-thirds of the way through Karla’s chest cavity.

Her lung collapsed and medical personnel inserted a tube to reopen it. She spent two-and-a-half days in the intensive care unit and four days altogether in the hospital, she said.

She had six stitches removed a week ago and is facing a potential four to six weeks in a restrictive shoulder brace. She will soon be evaluated on whether her shoulder needs surgery.

The insurance company just told the family it isn’t going to cover her air ambulance, which cost $67,583.23.

That doesn’t include the deductible the family has to meet on the other medical bills, and the expense of Karla’s husband Andrew being on unpaid family leave after he used all his paid leave,