“Call 911! Call 911,” a passerby cried out. When Ryan Kim opened his eyes, the world reeled, and he saw blood everywhere—more blood than he had ever imagined. “I could see the fragmented remnants of my friend’s bicycle going through my leg,” Kim said. Kim and his family prayed that the injury would not shatter the 15-year-old’s life for the third time. But what came back was a solemn verdict that felt like a death sentence: “You might have to amputate your leg.” 

Kim’s lifelong streak of injuries dates back to his first year of life. “I pulled down a boiling kettle when my parents weren’t in the kitchen, and I got third-degree burns all over my body, starting from my neck,” Kim said. “We went to a hospital in China, but the ER line was too long, and they said that they couldn’t treat third-degree burns. We immediately boarded a flight to Korea for surgery.” 

What they hoped would be one surgery turned into two, then three, then eleven. “I couldn’t believe that Ryan, only one year old at the time, had ended up with severe burns all over his body. I was terrified that something might go wrong. After the surgeries, I don’t think I left his side for even a second. I stayed right next to him and took care of him the whole time,” said Soe Yeon Kim, Kim’s mother. 

After the accident, Kim’s parents went to great lengths to keep their child safe as they moved around the world. “They were scared that I would get hurt again,” Kim said. “They made sure that they knew where I was at all times and looked into any sports I participated in.” 

But the next blow in Kim’s unfortunate streak struck at school in Hungary. “We were doing 100-meter sprints in PE class. I was running on an all-weather track when I tripped and fell,” Kim said. “It was a track designed to absorb impact and prevent injuries, but when I tried to stand up, I couldn’t move my leg.”

To make matters worse, the fall shattered his growth plates. “My doctor told me that I might not grow anymore. I was around 160 centimeters tall at the time, so I was completely lost on what to do because there was nothing I could do but go through rehabilitation and hope for a miracle,” Kim said.

 With only his family to lean on, Kim devoted himself to rehabilitation for three months on end. Although his friends tried to keep him in the loop at first, as time passed, he lost touch with his friends, one by one, as they got caught up in the thick of school. “What hurt the most was that all my friends were outside playing sports and laughing. They were hanging out, enjoying their time together, but for me, the only thing I could do was talk on the phone. One by one, my friends started drifting away. I couldn’t smile all day, and being alone just felt more comfortable.” 

Thankfully, Kim’s family stayed by his side. “Since I lost touch with my friends, I spent a lot of time with my family, and they helped me cope with my injury. As I recovered, we all piled up in a car and visited places like Italy and Paris,” Kim said.  

Miraculously, Kim defied his doctor’s death sentence on his growth. “I’m still not sure how it happened. I slept a lot and smiled a lot, and then I started growing. Looking back, my growth plates were fractured, not shattered, but my doctor had said that it was a permanent injury. It wasn’t something that medicine could explain,” Kim said. “My doctor worked with quite a few patients like me, and he said that I was the first case to break my growth plates from tripping on a rubber track AND the first case to recover from that. It felt like a miracle.” 

Although Kim stayed half-in, half-out of his friend group for the remainder of his time in Hungary, he moved to the United States two years later, ready for an injury-free life. “When I first moved, I played varsity soccer and got along well with my friends,” Kim said. 

But as if by cruel irony, disaster struck on the mundanest of days. “We decided to bike our way to soccer practice. I hadn’t been on a bike since first grade, and there was a steep downhill slope.” Kim slammed his hands into the brakes, but the brakes were broken, and he bolted down the hill, straight into a guardrail. 

“When I saw the bicycle going through my leg and heard people shouting to call 911, I knew everything had gone wrong. I had been injured again,” Kim said. “Every time I moved to a new country, I kept getting seriously injured. I felt like I had nothing to say to my family because I’d promised not to get hurt again, but here I was.” 

Kim asked, “Can you not call 911?” But despite his requests, his parents rushed to the scene, and the ambulance rushed him to the ER. There, the doctors told Kim’s parents that he might have to amputate his leg due to tetanus (a bacterial infection that causes severe muscle spasms). “I felt like telling Ryan he might have to amputate his leg would overwhelm him, especially when he was in so much physical and mental pain. So we waited until he was recovering,” said Soe Yeon Kim. 

The doctors issued a final verdict: if fluid came out of the wound when they inserted a tube, Kim would need surgery. But miraculously, no fluid came out. “I didn’t even need surgery, just stitches,” Kim said. “It was such a serious injury, but it healed with such a simple procedure.” 

Throughout the month-long rehab that followed, his friends stayed by his side. “The friend who went to practice with me when the accident happened felt a lot of guilt. He didn’t imagine that I would get into such a huge accident and accidentally didn’t mention the broken brake,” Kim said. “He’s normally not the most affectionate type, but he kept asking if I was fine and apologized many times as I healed.”

Contrary to his injury and rehabilitation in Hungary, Kim found friendships that challenged his long-held belief that “there’s no point in getting attached” when he moved every couple of years. “One of the sunbaes I became close with in school visited me a lot when I was in the ICU, and on days he couldn’t come, he sent me encouraging texts,” Kim said. “I was really grateful for that, and I think that was the first time I made a real friend. That friendship has continued since then.” 

Now, on his fifth international move to his home country, Kim cherishes the ordinary routine of walking into school rather than an ER. “I know what it feels like to have a ‘normal’ life yanked away from me,” Kim said. “I’m so thankful that I can live normally instead of living in a hospital ward. I carry that gratefulness with me wherever I go.”