Laurel Yae

Help support Laurel’s recovery and her family. This journey for Laurel and her family holds many unknowns at this time and any support you can provide is greatly appreciated.

On the afternoon of Thursday October 19th around 4pm, Laurel was driving home to Seattle by herself on westbound I-90 after rock climbing with a friend when she hit the back end of a semi-truck. The specifics of how the accident happened are unknown at this time, but this stretch of highway at the exit to highway 18 is known to be precarious. Her husband, Josh, mom, Edie and dad, Jules received a crash alert notification from Laurel’s phone that she had been in an accident.

There were a number of Seattle firefighters leaving from instructing at the North Bend Fire Training Academy who were coincidentally a few minutes behind Laurel when the accident happened. Some of them in their personal vehicles, some of them in back up fire engines, they pulled over and blocked traffic. Within minutes of the crash, Laurel had 7-8 highly skilled first responders on scene to extinguish a fire that was burning in her car’s engine compartment and got to work pulling Laurel out of the vehicle. Crews on scene said all the airbags deployed and Laurel was wearing her seatbelt. She was unconscious, and her legs were squeezed beneath the dashboard of the car. Laurel’s initial heart rate and blood pressure were stable and within normal ranges. Bellevue Medics arrived and were on scene for 4 minutes and intubated Laurel as a precaution before transporting her to Harborview. Laurel was in transport within 27 minutes after the accident and arrived at Harborview within the hour.

Taylor Mcgill, a firefighter on Ladder 12 in Seattle, and Jason Lynch, a Medic with Seattle Medic 1 who were on scene of the accident visited Josh and Laurel’s families at the Harborview ICU Friday October 20th. They said that although crews on scene work at different stations and on different crews, it was one of those moments where they were all working in sync in a flow state in providing care for Laurel. There could not have been a more fortunate series of events that led to the rapid emergency medical care and transport of Laurel to the hospital.

Since the accident, there has been an outpouring of love and care for Laurel, Josh, and their families. Friends, family, firefighters, and unions have visited to show their support. Josh has more date bars, Ollie Pops, and healthy snacks than he knows what to do with and he has an amazing team of people helping handle support and logistics of this process.

The family asks that everyone understands that this will be a long, nonlinear process of healing and in these initial stages there will often be more questions than answers. As there are updates and changes to Laurel’s condition, the family will post them to the Caring Bridge site. (https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/laurelyae/journal)