“I went to Japan and I was ready to spend the next 20 years there,” Kayla Saska said, a former sailor describing her first duty station. “I loved it, the people, the culture.”
Kayla, a high school athlete who scored well on the military entrance exams, excelled in the Navy school for her job, fire controlman aegis. She picked Japan so that she could do her job where it really mattered, and she did great in early exercises.
“After school I was sent straight to the ship, and we had to launch a missile within a month and a half. We fixed the radar to launch the missile, and I earned a Navy Achievement Medal for our hard work. It was really cool seeing the launch and I loved it.”
Kayla’s promising Navy career was cut short when a shipboard accident and follow-on medical complications sidelined her. It started when her team was moving equipment cases weighing about 100 pounds down the ladders inside the ship. A fellow sailor controlled a box from above as Kayla Saska held it below.
“I was kind of bracing it and, as soon as I got a couple steps down the ladder, I heard, ‘Sas, I don’t have it,’” she said.
“I looked up and saw the case coming down.”
The case slammed into her, causing a brain injury, and she was pushed down the stairs and hurt her left leg badly.
The Navy sent Kayla back to the states for the medical care she needed. She enjoyed initial progress until she had a rare reaction to an iron infusion. The reaction to the iron infusion damaged some of her internal organs, leading to multiple emergency room visits and ambulance rides before doctors could figure out what was happening. As her condition worsened, she found herself needing a familiar face to support her.
“I thought I was going to die, and I called my family saying, ‘I need someone here,’” she said.
Kayla’s sister, Patricia Rowledge, rushed to her side.
“She was in and out of the hospital,” Patricia said. “I think it was her seventh time in the hospital, and my dad called me at work and said, ‘You need to get to Kayla.’”
“I think it was a matter of three minutes to where my sister was packed, ready to go,” Kayla laughed.
Patricia, an Army veteran, rushed to Maryland. When she arrived, Kayla was back in the emergency room at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. They met in the waiting room as Kayla returned for a bag and Patricia was sitting there, with a Fisher House folder in her hand.
“Some people from the house were told that I was coming, and they came and found me in the ER and gave me a folder and told me a room was waiting for me,” Patricia said.
Patricia was a fierce advocate for Kayla in the hospital.
“My sister is very stern,” Kayla said. “She gets stuff done, and of all the people to help fight for me, my friends helped too, but it was amazing having her there.”
The Fisher Houses at Bethesda gave Patricia a safe place to stay near Kayla.
“Fisher House was great,” Patricia said. “It’s like going to grandma’s house. They have everything you need.”
After an emergency removal of Kayla’s gallbladder, she eventually had to accept medical retirement. But she has returned to sports competition and represented Team Navy at the Warrior Games and Team U.S. at the Invictus Games.