Kline’s Success: It’s a Mini-Miracle on Ice : Speedskating: She qualifies for four Olympic events. Six months ago, she barely survived auto crash.

Michelle Kline still remembers her first reaction after regaining consciousness after surgery for injuries suffered in an automobile accident last June and seeing a foot-long scar on her chest.

“I couldn’t believe I was still here,” she said.

She didn’t mean “here” as in intensive care at a Park Ridge, Ill., hospital. She meant “here” as in alive.

“At that point, I wasn’t thinking about skating,” she said recently. “My main concern was whether I would ever be normal again. Would I walk normally? Would I breathe normally?”

Six months later, Kline, 23, is a walking, breathing member of the U.S. speedskating team for the 1992 Winter Olympics in February at Albertville, France.

Remarkably, she will compete at Albertville in at least four events, more than any other U.S. skater. She earned berths Saturday in the 500 meters and the 3,000 in the U.S. trials at the Wisconsin Olympic Ice Rink, then returned Sunday to make the team in the 1,000 and the 5,000. In the 1,500, she’s an alternate.

“It’s a miracle, I think,” she said Sunday.

On the morning of June 19, Kline was traveling with three other speedskaters from Chicago to Milwaukee in a Jeep Cherokee driven by Nathaniel Mills. Approaching a tollbooth, Mills reached into his pocket for change and lost control of the Jeep, which fishtailed across two lanes and slammed into a light pole.

Mills, of Northfield, Ill., and Mark Greenwald, of Park Ridge, were not injured. Moira D’Andrea, of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., was hospitalized with a concussion and bruised ribs and released two days later.

Kline, from Circle Pines, Minn., was taken unconscious to the hospital, where she underwent surgery for a lacerated spleen and kidney, a punctured lung, broken ribs on both sides and torn muscles in her neck and shoulder.

She remained hospitalized for 12 days before returning home to Minnesota, where her first workout was a walk down her 20-foot driveway and back.

“It took 30 minutes,” she said.

For six weeks, she could not get out of bed without assistance. It wasn’t until mid-August that she could jog or ride a bicycle.

“I’m sometimes a panicky person, but I never said, ‘This is the Olympic year; why me?’ ” she said. “I cried once when I was in the weight room, and I was frustrated because I couldn’t do jumping exercises. But I never asked why. I figured I had to deal with it.

“My goal was to skate in the 1992 Olympics. I wasn’t going to let a car accident get in my way. The first time I believed I’d be OK was on September 1, when I stepped onto the ice for the first time.”

Kline said that she lost 15 pounds after the accident and regained six or seven before the trials.

“I feel like I lost another 10 pounds now,” she said after making the team in her first event Saturday. “I’m so relieved.”

The other three skaters involved in the accident also made the team.

“It’s definitely a miracle that she made the team,” D’Andrea said of Kline. “The doctor said that if she hadn’t been in such good shape, she wouldn’t have survived the accident. But, if anyone could do it, it would be Michelle because she’s so strong physically and mentally.”

Speedskating Notes

Twelve team members were veterans of the 1988 Winter Olympics . . . Two-time world sprint champion Dan Jansen, who earned a berth on the team Saturday in the 500, survived a scare in the 1,000 Sunday. In the third of three races over the last two weekends, he finished fourth. But that was good enough for third overall. Four men will skate in that event for the United States.

Attempting to become the first U.S. speedskater to compete in five Olympics, Nancy Swider-Peltz of Wheaton, Ill., barely missed Sunday, when she finished third in the 5,000. Only two U.S. women will skate in that event at Albertville . . . Mary Docter, 30, made the team in her third event by winning the 5,000. In her fourth Olympics, she also will compete in the 1,500 and 3,000 . . . Bonnie Blair of Champaign, Ill., finished first Sunday in her third event, the 1,000. Earlier, she won the 500 and the 1,500 . . . Blair might never have to skate again at the Wisconsin Olympic Ice Rink, which is due to be replaced late next year by a modern, indoor facility. “That’s a nice thought,” she said.