Prayers requested for Stephanie and Christian Nielson

[Burt McCumber]

This year I helped put together two teams from my work for the Ragnar Del Sol Relay; Atwell-Hicks: Engineered to Run and Atwell-Hicks: Calculated Motion.  I was on the Calculated Motion team.  Stephanie Nielson, a friend of a co-worker, was on the Engineered to Run team.  This weekend she, her husband, and a flight instructor were involved in a plane crash in St. Johns, Arizona.  The flight instructor passed away.  Stephanie's husband, Christian, was burned on about 20 to 30% of his body and Stephanie has suffered burns on 70 to 80% of her body.  They're both in pretty bad shape right now.  They have four adorable little children.  Stephanie and her sister are quite the bloggers (not part of FRB, but nonetheless).  The best place to get updates on Stephanie's condition is on her sister's blog: http://cjanerun.com/.  Right now I'm just asking for everyone to remember her, her husband, and her children in your prayers.  Thanks.

[Kelli]

That is just awful!  Thanks for letting us know.  We will keep hem and their children in our thoughts and in our prayers.

[Lybi]

Oh my!  I DO know her, well...not really.  She's a friend of a friend, but I have read her blog before, and I admire her a lot.  She and her hubby are so sweet and loving!  I heard about this earlier today.   She will definitely be in my prayers!  The danger to life is still very great due to infection.  And burns are soooo painful to recover from!!!  They will definitely be in my prayers.  This could not have happened to sweeter people. 

[Burt McCumber]

The Today's show did a piece on Stephanie and Christian this morning.  Go to this link to view it:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/26621202#26621202

[Kory Wheatley]

I definitely will keep them in my prayers.

[Craig Green]

What a trip. My good friend and neighbor Chris Valentine brought this up a week ago. He was telling me about his brother-in-law (Chris Clark- Stephanie's brother) and how his sister got in a plane accident and was 70-80% burned and her husband was 23-30% burned, and that the flight instructor was killed. I didn't know there was a running blog connection too. Chris put the Today show up on youtube. He told me last night that they think she is going to pull through, and that Christian is done with his hospital visits & surgeries in another week or two.

[Burt McCumber]

Unbeknownst to me at the time I started this thread, Stephanie also ran in the 2008 Wasatch Back relay with a team called the Running Thunderdogs.  Now I've heard, but don't know all the details yet, that the folks at Ragnar are going to donate the entrance fees of those teams that sign up under Stephanie and Christian to the "Nie Recovery Fund".  I think that's just awesome.

[Burt McCumber]

If anyone's interested in a 5k fund raiser for Stephanie and Christian in Provo, go to the following link:
http://www.5kfornie.blogspot.com/

[Burt McCumber]

There will be another fund raiser race for the Nielsons, this time in AZ.  It is a 10k run and a 5k run\walk.  Here is the link for more details:
http://web.me.com/andrewtbagley/NieRecovery/Events/Entries/2009/1/24_Run_for_Nie%2C_AZ.html#
Thanks!

[Kelli]

Hey, Burt, I heard they were moving here to get help from family.  Did that happen?  Just curious.  Do you know how they are doing?

[Burt McCumber]

Yes, Kelli. It's been about a month since I've followed her sister's blog regularly, but I know the whole family is in Provo with Stephanie's family.  All of you that live in Utah probably know her father as prominent politician, Steve Clark.  Stephanie continues to rehabilitate and has even recently started blogging again: http://nieniedialogues.com/. 
They ended up cancelling the Arizona 5k/10k fundraiser, but guess what?  I'm not even mad because the money went to a good cause.