SCOTTSDALE — As a volleyball comes flying towards her, Horizon sophomore Bridget Korn doesn’t hesitate.
Dropping to the floor, she streches out her arm and throws her body towards the ball, just as she’s done countless times before. For most, it would be considered just another play in practice. For Bridget, it’s a reminder of how far she’s come.
Seven years ago, doctors weren’t sure if Bridget would every run again. Today, she’s diving across the court as a libero, serving as a team captain and chasing dreams extending far beyond the gym. She also trains with the USA National Team Development Program for sitting volleyball, working towards her goal of one day representing the United States.
Her journey leading up to this point began when she was just a young child, unexpectedly diagnosed with Osteosarcoma.
Early life
Bridget started out her life just like every other normal kid. When she was young, her mom got her involved in soccer. At just six years old, she got kicked in the leg at practice between her shin guard and cleat, leaving her in excruciating pain.
“She came running over screaming to me in pain, and total proud mom moment, I was like ‘Go rub some dirt on it. Go back in, you’re fine,’” Jamie said.
Except the pain didn’t subside for Bridget. By Saturday, Jamie said she was still limping, leading her to take her into the pediatrician the following Monday. Her doctor decided to do an x-ray, MRI and a bone biopsy, which led to some of the most crushing news a parent could ever be told: Bridget had cancer.
“I was on my way home from work and I got the worst phone call a parent will ever receive, telling me that what we were hoping for was a bone infection was in fact cancer,” Jamie said.
Jamie said she got home and got down on her hands and knees next to Bridget’s bed, where she was recovering from her bone biopsy, and told her the news. Despite being only six years old at the time, Bridget knew what cancer was. She had already fundraised with her mom previously for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in honor of her friend, who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.
Jamie wasted no time trying to get Bridget the help she needed, applying immediately to St. Jude in Memphis, TN. Within 24 hours of finding out Bridget’s diagnosis, she was accepted as a patient.
“We knew with a very aggressive type of bone cancer like Osteosarcoma that the best place for hope and a cure for Bridget was St. Jude,” Jamie said. “So I left my husband and my son, and my job, and Bridget left her soccer team, her first grade class and her family and we moved to Memphis.”
“I think the hardest part was definitely leaving all my friends here at home and not having all my close friends with me,” Bridget said.
Bridget would spend the next 10 months living at St. Jude.
After arriving in Memphis, Bridget started undergoing chemotherapy treatments, which lasted for 10 weeks. Following chemo, she had her leg amputated on April 23, 2018 and just 3 1/2 weeks later, she was already walking with her prosthetic.
“She was jogging on a treadmill three months post amputation, which is significantly faster than any other hospital or treatment facility,” Jamie said.
After her amputation, Bridget had to remain at St. Jude for another seven months of chemotherapy after surgery. Chemo brought with it its own set of challenges, like hearing loss, a blood clot and osteoperosis.
In March of 2019, Bridget broke her leg a second time due to the osteoperosis caused by chemo. Doctors told her she might walk again, but she’d probably never run. Their message pushed her to overcome what people said she couldn’t do.
“I just was like, ‘Okay, they’re gonna say that, but everyone can prove anyone wrong, and I’m gonna prove them wrong and I’m gonna do what I want to do.'”
According to Jamie, after her second femur break, it was a long road filled with multiple surgeries to reconstruct her leg.
“After that femur break it took multiple surgeries to put her leg back together, damaging her growth plate and stopping the growth of that leg, and it took her a year to be able to relearn to walk after that,” Jamie said.
Once Bridget regained her ability to walk, she immediately got back into sports. First, she swam competitively before trying horseback riding and basketball. Eventually, she found her true love in volleyball, and she’s never looked back.
Current athletic career
Since re-learning how to walk, Bridget has gone on to have quite the volleyball career. Last year, she was a member of Horizon’s Freshman squad. Her former coach, Cori Vaquera, said she was a leader on the team and her passion for the sport always shined through.
“She knows how to articulate her words in a way to encourage her teammates,” Vaquera said. “She’s high energy, and her energy is infectious, so yeah. She’s just great at that.”
This year, she made the JV team, where her teammates voted her as one of their captians for the season.
“She has high integrity and discipline for herself, and she has earned every position that she has gotten,” JV Coach Gemma Keldrauk said. “She’s very responsible, and she’s inspiring and motivates the other players. Her work ethic is so consistent, and as a coach and as a previous player, it’s just so refreshing to see that because those are things that you can’t really coach.”
She also is a member of USA National Team Development Program for sitting volleyball, where she has dreams to go on and represent Team USA.
“My goal, I think long-term, is to represent the United States for sitting volleyball,” Bridget said.
Bridget’s been on the development team for a year now, traveling back and forth from Oklahoma for practice.
Bridget initially didn’t have plans to go out for the sitting volleyball development team. After they found her on Instagram and sent her a message, she got on the phone with the Director of Recruiting and they invited her down to a camp the following week.
“We made a super last-minute decision and we went the next week, and I made the development team,” Bridget said.
Being on the development team provides a unique opportunity for Bridget. Not only does she improve her volleyball IQ while she’s training with her sitting team, she also gets to be around people who she shares similiarities with.
“I love being able to walk in the room and nobody stares at me because there my disability is normal,” Bridget said. “When I walk into the gym (at Horizon) or I go to club, it’s not normal, but when I go there, it’s normal and everyone has a disability there.”
According to Vaquera, Bridget’sexperiences give her a unique perspective that she brings to the team.
“Bridget has been through a lot of adversity, so I feel like having Bridget on the team, she’s just emotionally mature,” Vaquera said. “I think she was able to bring the grit and the drive. There’s no difference between her and other athletes, in my opinion. She’s just another great volleyball player who cares about the game.”
Her coaches say that despite some of her physical limitations she might face, she always performs to the best of her ability and gives everything she’s got.
“She’s our libero, and that girl lays out for everything,” Keldrauk said. “Whether it’s a drill or whether it’s a scrimmage, and that’s the type of discipline that we want all of our players to have.”
Philanthropic efforts
When Bridget isn’t busy playing volleyball, going to school or just being a normal 15-year-old girl, she spends a lot of her time and effort helping to fundraise for St. Jude. She’s spoken at numerous events all over the country, where she’s helped to raise millions of dollars towards the cause.
“I’d have to go and look back at all the events that she’s spoken at and the hundreds of thousands of dollars that every one of them has raised,” Jamie said. “If you were to put them together when she’s spoken at events and shared her story, she’s raised millions of dollars cumulatively for the mission.”
Seven years ago, her grandparents in New Jersey started a golf tournament and cocktail party fundraiser for St. Jude after seeing how much the hospital did for their family.
“My mom lived with us almost the entire time at St. Jude,” Jamie said. “When my mom left and went back home, she said to my dad, ‘I never imagined what a blessing it was to be at St. Jude. To not have to worry about anything other than your child getting better.’ She said we have to do something and we have to share what this organization does for families and children like Bridget ... So they came up with the idea of doing a golf tournament and a cocktail party.”
Originally, Jamie was the speaker every year at the event, but with time, Bridget has now become both the speaker and the emcee. She also participates in the golf tournament herself.
“My whole family went to college for golf, so I’ve kinda like picked that up,” Bridget said. “I started it before I started playing volleyball. I’ve just known how to kind of play since, so I’ve played for fun in the golf tournament.”
Many younger kids don’t understand the value in giving back, but not Bridget. She understands its importance and encourages others to get involved.
“I think it matters so much to me because I know they saved my life, and I want to help kids and save their lives with what I can do,” Bridget said.
“She sees what St. Jude does for her and her friends that she lived with,” Jamie said. “Other patients that have become her friends and family over time, you know, and she can kind of see the direct impact of what she’s doing.”
Jamie also found so much value in what St. Jude provided to them in their time of need, she completely changed the trajectory of her career to become part of the Fundraising and Awareness Organization for St. Jude. While she had previously done fundraising for the hospital, their first-hand experience there changed her life.
“I left my job of 22 years and I now work for the fundraising and awareness organization of St. Jude,” Jamie said. “I’ll never be able to give back to the hospital for saving my daughter’s life, but if I can share what they’ve done for us, it’s a small part that I can do to help.”
When her coaches heard about her philanthropic contributions and the funds she’s been able to raise throughout the years, they were blown away.
“She’s awesome,” Vaquera said. “She’s an overall 10 out of 10 human being.”
“Just the fact that she is wanting to see other people succeed as much as she has,” Keldrauk said. “When you give, it fills your heart, too, and just the fact that she knows this at this age is just incredible. There’s so many adults that are still trying to learn that.”
Advocating for change
For a number of amputees like Bridget, getting the proper prosthetics for athletics can be a challenge due to financial restraints. Many insurance companies don’t want to cover the costs associated with providing the prosthetics necessary for athletic activities. Bridget is lucky, as St. Jude provides her sport prosthetic since her mother’s insurance doesn’t cover it.
“St. Jude provides Bridget’s prosthetic, her sport leg prosthetic, of which my insurance doesn’t cover,” Jamie said. “So every time she goes to volleyball practice and dives on the ground, she knows she’s going to be able to get up because she has the correct prosthetic.”
Other amputees who don’t have the support of St. Jude’s can really struggle to get their proper prosthetics. Recently, Bridget was approached by an organization called So Everybody Can Move, asking her if she would help fight for insurance reform.
“They said, ‘You know, we are working towards insurance reform and we know that you’ve had challenges with that, would this be something that you’re interested in supporting?' and Bridget said absolutely,” Jamie said.
Her involvement included going to the Arizona House of Representatives, sharing her story and lobbying for insurance reform.
“I said that I shouldn’t have to tell my story or plead for organizations to give me a foot or a leg, I should be able to get that leg whenever I would need it,” Bridget said.
“I think Bridget was nervous, it’s very intimidating,” Jamie said. “It’s obviously a stage that she had not been on, but she went down there and did that.”
The bill, HB2333, passed that day at the House of Representatives, but it stalled before the end of the year. The organization has remained in contact with Bridget and has asked her if she would be willing to participate again, to which she gladly said yes, as they continue advocating for change.
Looking forward
Bridget looks forward to continuing to live her life to the fullest, with a number of goals set up for her future.
In athletics, she would like to continue growing and contributing to the Horizon volleyball program. She also hopes to play volleyball in college at a D-II or D-III school and represent Team USA for sitting volleyball.
In the classroom, her goal is to get all A’s this semester as she balances her courseload with her busy schedule.
She also plans to continue fundraising for St. Jude and giving her time as a guest speaker when needed.
For those close in her life, they know how much potential Bridget has for success in whatever she puts her mind to.
“I feel like the sky is the limit,” Jamie said. “I would’ve never imagined the things that she’s already done, so i hate to even put limitations out there for her ... I can’t wait to see you know, the career that she has because she’s a leader in so many different ways, and I know that she’s gonna be remarkable at whatever career she chooses. I also can’t wait to see the life and the family that hopefully she’ll be able to have because you think she’d be an amazing mom and just a role model for so many people.”
(Submitted Photo/Jamie Korn)
(Submitted Photo/Jamie Korn)
(Submitted Photo/Jamie Korn)
Brittany Bowyer is a Report for America corps member, covering sports for Independent Newsmedia in Arizona. Report for America places talented journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and regions.
By 
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here