SIMI VALLEY : ‘Miracle’ Girl From Car Crash Greets Rescuers

In his 23 years as a firefighter, Capt. Dick Dobbin has responded to countless car accidents and witnessed far too many deaths.

So when he saw 17-year-old Kristine Stemples’ crushed young body collapsed in the back of a wrecked car last summer, Dobbin seriously doubted that the girl would live.

But Friday afternoon, the shy Simi Valley teen-ager who spent seven weeks in a coma walked into Ventura County Fire Station 44 to embrace Dobbin and other firefighters responsible for her rescue.

“Thank you,” the blonde girl said to the crews from engines 40, 44 and truck 30--all of whom responded to her accident.

“You look a lot better this time than the last time I saw you,” Capt. Lee Heise told her. “It’s a miracle you survived.”

In July, Kristine was critically injured when the car in which she was a passenger swerved off Tierra Rejada Road and plunged 100 feet down an embankment. Four other teen-agers escaped the car unhurt, but Kristine suffered massive head injuries.

Katherine Stemples said her daughter’s doctors said Kristine would have died without county firefighters’ fast response. “If she hadn’t got (to the hospital) when she did, she wouldn’t have made it,” Stemples said.

For the past five weeks, Kristine has been relearning how to walk, talk and eat, her mother said. She hopes to return to Royal High School for the remainder of her senior year in February.

Since firefighters often don’t know what happens to the people they rescue, Dobbin said seeing Kristine alive and nearly recovered was a reward for those who saved her.

“I’ve seen too many people die,” he said to Kristine. “I’m glad you’re still here with us.”