Recollections of the crash that left a beloved Santa Clarita teen without a limb have circulated the internet since July, but Harley Anne Laub has since revealed her side of the story in an interview with KHTS– a story that breaks down mental health through the loss of a limb. 

Harley was leaving her girlfriend’s house after an afternoon of swimming and making carne asada when she decided to take the bus home just after 7:30 p.m. on July 28. 

“I’ve been on Dockweiler so many times and if there’s no cars on a light, it won’t let the pedestrian cross,” Harley said. “There were no cars there and I just saw the bus go past me, so that means the other one was about to come around on the other side, so I went to go.”

The then 16-year-old girl was struck by a vehicle and left unconscious in the intersection of Sierra Highway and Dockweiler Drive in Newhall. 

“I was crossing Dockweiler and I kind of remember going on the center median to cross it,” Harley said. “I went to go and I don’t know the rest. I don’t know what lane I was in. I just don’t know.” 

When emergency responders arrived on scene, personnel applied a tourniquet to the critical patient, before transporting her to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital. It was not for another hour before deputies with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station got a hold of Harley’s family. 

“They just said she had been in an accident, it looked like her leg had been hurt very badly and to get to the hospital,” her mother said in a previous KHTS article. “I didn’t know it was that severe until I actually got to see her.”

Harley had sustained a major injury to her right lower leg including two breaks, a severed artery alongside one break, two fractures in her pelvis, two collapsed lungs and multiple rib fractures, according to the family. 

While her family and doctors worked to assist Harley with her extensive injuries, the Santa Clarita teen does not remember much from her first month in the hospital. 

“The whole hospital thing is kind of fuzzy,” Harley said. “I don’t remember some of it, towards the end I do remember it but towards the beginning, like the first month, I don’t really remember anything.”

What Harley does remember is the pain. 

“In the beginning, with the pain that I was feeling with my leg– I didn’t even want the leg,” Harley said. “I imagined it would never be the same. I imagined that it would never move the same. It would never have the same mobility and I also have arthritis, so I figured my leg was practically done for. I wanted it to be amputated two weeks before it was actually amputated.”

Following her initial request to amputate, Harley was undergoing an eight-hour cleaning surgery when she started losing an unexpected amount of blood and completely lost circulation in her foot. 

“They would try to save it, try to save it, but they couldn’t,” Harley said. “They brought me back out at like 1 in the morning. I hadn’t eaten at all that whole day. I finally got some dinner in my stomach (when) they told us ‘we don’t even think that we can save it anymore.’”

By the time doctors had decided to amputate, Harley had been hospitalized for almost a month. 

“I’m still a little pissed off because I feel like everything could have happened a lot earlier and I wouldn’t have felt so much pain and it wouldn’t be so mentally draining,” Harley said. “But I’m glad it happened because I never wanted the leg. It was really bad– I’ve never felt that kind of pain before.”

Despite dozens of hours of surgery, bone and skin grafts, a leg amputation among additional procedures, the toughest part of the recovery process for Harley seems to be psychological. 

See Related: Santa Clarita Teen Amputee Tackles Mental, Emotional Health Struggles After Crash

“I know everyone’s saying ‘oh you’re gonna do it,’ like come on I know I’m gonna do it, but I just can’t do it at the moment,” Harley said. “Like I can’t go grab the 30-pound case of water for my grandma, I can’t go wash the floor for her, I can’t go make money and go do the yard for my grandparents… because that’s something that I would do to help calm me down.”

Just days away from receiving her learner’s permit, the once independent teen had to put the coveted milestone on the back burner in exchange for months in recovery. 

“I was constantly going and going. I was always doing something and now it’s paused,” Harley said. “(Before the accident) I would go out to go for a jog or for a walk or to go ride my bike.” 

Harley is still able to participate in dirt biking, one of her favorite hobbies, without a prosthetic. However, the lack of social interaction and ability to find an outlet to release her anxieties has been weighing on her mental health, according to Harley. 

“I’ve had many, many, many people tell me that I’m not the same person,” Harley said. “Even my own grandma just told me ‘I miss the happy girl.’ I’m trying to become that same person, I’m trying to grow, I’m trying to get back to how I was and everything, but I am for sure not the same person.”

Navigating life through a new perspective, Harley has been forced to adjust to many new circumstances, not just the physical. 

“I wish people understood that it’s more mentally draining than it was physically, cause when I was in the hospital I was thinking ‘yeah I’ll lose it, I’ll be fine physically, I’ll get through it, I’ll get a prosthetic,’ but I really wasn’t thinking about the mental toll it would take on me,” Harley said. “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anger issues, anxiety attacks– I get all of it constantly.” 

Harley has also been learning to cope with “phantom pains,” a nerve sensation felt from a limb that is no longer there. 

“I don’t really even know how to explain it because you can never explain it to someone who’s never felt it,” Harley said. “It’s just weird, it’s like your nerves shooting pain, it makes your nerves swell up and it makes your nerves go crazy and stitch up.”

While her journey has been difficult both physically and emotionally, Harley is glad that she can be a person that other kids who lose their limbs can look up to. 

“If I can get through it, anyone can get through it cause there’s going to be kids out there that lose their legs, there’s going to be many people that lose their legs– it’s just about whether you have the strong mindset and the right support to get through it,” Harley said. 

When asked how she feels having her journey documented by local news sources including KHTS, Harley explained how “it’s kind of overwhelming and it kind of makes people think that I want the attention when I kind of don’t want the attention, but at the same time, it’s cool to put my story out there so maybe I can be someone that somebody can look up to.”

Laub is in need of specialized equipment to continue doing the activities she enjoys with an amputated leg, including wakeboarding and dirt biking. Part of the proceeds donated through the Santa Clarita Coalition are set to help with those costs.

Through the help of the community so far, Harley has received a therapy dog and training free of charge.

“She’s adorable,” Harley said. “She helps me a lot mentally because if I’m having a breakdown and I don’t know what to do, she can jump up there and try to lick me and calm me down… It’s good to always have something happy by my side.”

Although her insurance would cover a standard prosthetic leg, it would not pay for more specialized prosthetics that would allow her to participate in athletics.

To contribute to Harley’s GoFundMe as she recovers, click here.

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