Dakota Nash cracks a joke with his step-mother Jennifer Nash at Phoenix Children's Hospital, where he is fighting leukemia.
Darren Bailey, Deseret News
PHOENIX, Ariz. — People know Dakota Nash as the “lightning strikes” kid.
At just 17 years old, his life has repeatedly been struck with unbelievable tragedies. Yet somehow the teen has been able to face every difficult twist of fate with great courage, hope and heart.
Now, Dakota is once again fighting for his life.
“He has a level of wisdom about him that you don’t expect in kids his age,” said his father, Daniel Nash.
A brutal crime first tore Dakota’s world apart. He was just 12 when he and his 9-year-old brother were living with their mother in Orem. The boys witnessed their mother's boyfriend shoot her in the back as she ran away from him, killing her.
“Dakota was very close to his mother. He was a mama’s boy,” his father said.
After the murder, Dakota and his siblings moved to Arizona to live with their father. “We were expecting anger, some personality issues out of that, but he proved us all wrong with an attitude of looking at life a different way,” Daniel Nash said.
That attitude would continue to be tested.
Dakota received extensive counseling, but volunteering at a horse ranch that served children with disabilities seemed to help Dakota the most and perhaps prepared him for the next great challenge in his life.
In March 2010 he was hit but a car. The accident left Dakota in a coma with a severe brain injury.
“That was a hard time because every day doctors would give you the worst-case scenario to prepare you,” said Daniel Nash. “You don’t want to hear he might never wake up.”
Dakota emerged from a coma after 10 days, but he would have to learn how to walk, talk, feed and clothe himself again. Determined, he set his sights on a goal — to play on the high school basketball team. After a year and a half of intensive therapy, his neurologist finally released Dakota to play.
But a few weeks later the unthinkable happened again.
Dakota’s gums started bleeding. His father took him to the emergency room, and 20 minutes later they received the grim diagnosis: leukemia.
“The lightning now has hit three times. How does it do that? Why does it do that?” Daniel Nash asked.
Dakota admits he is looking for those same answers. But he believes there is a definite reason for his trials.
