DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) — When you’re a runner, there’s no halftime, no timeouts, no coaching adjustments. There’s just the methodical rhythm of one footfall after another — enduring until the finish line.
Determination endures — and Amber Johnson knows determination well. She used it to claw her way up from the 13th runner on the roster to be a team leader by the time she left St. Teresa High School.
“She saw success,” said Amber’s coach, Todd Vohland. “But she also saw hardships.”
Those hardships came in the form of injuries and near misses in postseason races. One injury prevented her running in the IHSA State Cross Country Meet her senior year.
Vohland saw it all but knew Amber would become a better person because of it. In the years since she graduated, he’s now gotten to know her as more than a student-athlete — he’s gotten to know Amber Johnson as a colleague and friend after she joined his staff at St. Teresa.
But that time building that relationship nearly came to an abrupt end.
“It’s one of those moments where I can remember almost every detail,” Vohland said. “I got a phone call from Christy Kernaghan… and she said, ‘Amber has been in an accident.’”
On April 29, 2022, Amber was in a major wreck just feet away from the school. Police say another vehicle hit Amber’s car going 109 miles per hour. The violent crash happened right in front of Caleb Kernaghan who had just returned from his track meet early.
“It was devastating honestly,” Caleb said. “We were there before the first responders were. We were the first ones to the car.”
Caleb’s mother, Christy prayed over Amber’s lifeless body while he and his brother Cameron ran to get help. Christy then dialed Vohland who was on his way back to school with the rest of boys’ track team.
“As a coach, they don’t teach us how to handle these situations,” he said.
He had minutes to prepare his team for what they might see — and make the difficult call to Amber’s fiancé, Ashton Hooker.
“[My] body went numb,” Hooker said. “There wasn’t a lot of thinking…I knew that I had to compose myself and get in the car and [call] her dad.”
The first few hours were harrowing for everyone waiting in the hospital. That list included Vohland, Hooker, the Kernaghans and numerous other friends and family of Amber.
“At that moment, we didn’t know if she was going to make it to the next morning,” Vohland said.
Amber had a traumatic brain injury, two fractured hips, a broken wrist and fractures in her hands. While she was in a coma, all anyone could do was endure the wait.
“When she was gone, there was almost this hole in the team,” Caleb said. “It was hard to keep the faith.”
It may have been hard, but faith endured.
“We knew that she was going to wake up at some point from her coma,” Hooker said. “[We] just didn’t know when.”
“When” was almost six weeks later in June.
“I just remember wanting to get up and walk,” Amber said.
Amber didn’t just want to walk — she wanted to walk the most important walk of her life.
“’I’m going to walk down that aisle.’ That’s one of the first things she told me,” Vohland said.
With the date circled on her hospital room’s whiteboard, walking with assistance soon followed. Assisted steps are one thing, but an army of medical professionals still had to work to get her walking without help. Cole Shartzer, a physical therapist assistant with Memorial Health, was one of many people to work with Amber personally.
“That’s a lot of lost time,” he said. “Being in a coma, not really moving — not moving at all — you lose a lot of muscle over time. If you don’t use it, you lose it.”
But even once she could walk, Amber wasn’t satisfied.
“I know that saying is ‘you have to walk before you run,” but I wanted to run from the get-go,” she said.
As Amber’s strength returned, so did her ability to return to the team she loves.
“As soon as I started coaching, it’s been a catalyst for my walking ability,” she said.
It was also a catalyst for her running ability. Caleb — the same athlete who found Amber lifeless inside her car — is now turning into Amber’s personal running coach, guiding her down the track as she works on her form.
“The smile on my face as she was running down that track on my side — I don’t know — it’s the happiest I’ve been in a long time,” Caleb said.
Amber’s return soon echoed through the team like a starting gun pushing athletes like Caleb and fellow senior Ellie Stahr to heights only Amber knew they could achieve.
“I often think of her, and I’ll see her on the sidelines,” Ellie said. “I’m doing this because she can’t right now…Being able to see her there cheering you on is just so helpful during a race because it just puts everything into perspective.”
But the benefit of perspective has gone both ways. Just as Amber has taught the kids to push through life’s obstacles, the kids have given Amber motivation to let go of resentment.
“These kids have helped me a lot because they make me smile and because I know that if I were to be angry, what does that show these kids?” she said. “That teaches them nothing.”
With step one of Amber’s comeback complete, it was now time to focus on the date she had circled all along — June 3, 2023.
“If you would have told me then that she’d be walking down the aisle on her originally scheduled wedding date, I don’t think I would’ve believed you,” Vohland said.
She did. It’s a date — a promise — that Amber kept.
“It [was] like the concluding chapter in a book, but the intro chapter in [another] book,” she said.
After an emotional walk down the aisle, Amber reached another finish line. But others still await — a return to teaching in the fall, a return to coaching cross country and a return to normal.
“Amber’s race is far from over,” Vohland said. “I know from who she’s been as a student and an athlete that her endurance is far greater than even she thinks it is.”
And when she reaches that next finish line, expect her to go chase another — because Amber Johnson endures.
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