After weeks of hope and surgery, Ward Melville grad Melaina Gargano loses leg

In a heartfelt and deeply personal social media post, Gargano’s mother, Victoria, delivered the heartbreaking news.

We did everything we possibly could … The surgeons worked tirelessly. Every option was explored. Every prayer was whispered,” Victoria Gargano of South Setauket wrote. “But her injuries were so severe that, after careful and heartbreaking consideration, the decision had to be made to remove her right leg.

“But please hear me when I say this — this does not break her spirit. This does not define her future. This does not take away the life she is meant to live,” the mother of three added in her message, which was shared on Facebook, as well as on a GoFundMe page created to help her daughter.

The Gargano family had pulled out every stop. After the Feb. 25 crash (which the family has said involved a suspected drunk driver) left the Arizona State University senior with catastrophic injuries, doctors at her original hospital recommended amputation.

Three inches of her tibia were missing, her fibula was fractured, and most of the skin and muscle on her lower leg and foot were severely damaged. One of her three major leg veins had stopped functioning.

Refusing to give up, the family located a specialized limb salvage center at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center in Philadelphia that believed there was a chance her leg could be saved. With their insurance company initially declining to cover a medical transport to Pennsylvania and the next surgery there, Melaina’s aunt launched an emergency GoFundMe page.

The effort raised $74,000 in a single day, and has since passed $117,000. Gargano was soon airlifted east, and surgeons performed a fifth surgery on her right leg.

But it was not enough.

Agreeing to the amputation, Victoria Gargano lamented, were words “no mother is ever prepared to say.”

Yet while Victoria Gargano’s shared thoughts carried grief, they also brought far more hope.

She described her daughter as a young woman who “walks into a room with a bright smile that she freely gives to everyone,” whose laughter “fills every corner of a room,” and whose spirit remains unbroken.

“Over these last two weeks, my respect and admiration for her have grown in ways I cannot even put into words,” Victoria Gargano wrote. “I have watched my daughter endure pain that no parent ever wants to see their child experience.

“There were nights of unbearable suffering. There were moments of fear. There were tears. And through it all she held on with courage,” she added.

Funds raised through the GoFundMe will go toward Melaina Gargano’s prosthetic, her rehabilitation, medical supplies and ongoing care.

The young woman’s mother urged supporters not to read her message with sadness.

“Read it with hope. Read it with faith,” Victoria Gargano wrote. “Her decision was based on the life she wants to live, not defined by tragedy, but by resilience and determination.”

“She is stepping into a new chapter with bravery that humbles me as her mother,” she continued. “We are so incredibly blessed to still have her. She is still our light. She is still our miracle.”

Ward Melville grad faces losing her leg in Arizona — donations pour in as time runs out