Print edition: 
Hana Choi fell asleep in the van, surrounded by her mother, twin sister and brother as they left Wichita on the first day of spring break in March.
She woke up in the hospital without them.
"I don't remember anything about the accident," Hana said this week from a rehabilitation hospital in Chicago, where she remains paralyzed from the waist down.
She remembered trying to talk and mouthing, "Where's my mother, my sister... ?"
It wasn't until days later she learned her world had fallen apart because of a drunken driver. He drove the wrong way on the Kansas Turnpike, officials said, slamming into the family's minivan, killing everyone but her.
"I spend most of my time sleeping and in physical therapy, trying to learn to do things independently," said Hana, 17.
Although she's had more surgery in Chicago, she knows there's a possibility she may not walk again.
People at the hospital have told her that with spinal cord injuries, the first months, and year, are important.
"In three months to a year is when most of the abilities come back," Hana said. "I still have hope of the possibilities."
Possibility was a theme in the life of her twin sister, Yuna. It's now become one for Hana.
It's the possibilities
Yuna's favorite quote on her Facebook page talked of possibilities.
"It's the possibilities that keep us going, not the guarantees," her close friend Michael Nguyen remembered.
The sisters were in the East High International Baccalaureate Program, full of motivated students with high academic goals. They were sophomores at the time of the accident.
In the days, even weeks, after the accident, friends missed school to stay with Hana at the hospital.
"We were there 24/7," said Nguyen, 16. "My friends are important to me."
Hana's dad — who was not in the van because he had stayed at home to work — speaks little English. The high school friends who were more fluent in English and Korean helped bridge communication gaps with doctors at Wesley Medical Center.
"The only word I can think of to describe it is 'beautiful,' " said Molly Lavacek, who taught the sisters at Robinson Middle School and witnessed the support from Hana's East High friends.
Hana said she visits with her friends on the phone and on Facebook.
Nguyen and Alice Le, another close friend, drove about 12 hours from Wichita to visit her in the Chicago hospital.
"It meant a lot to me," she said.
Nyugen and Le, 17, didn't tell Hana they were coming. They arrived to find her asleep in her hospital bed.
They crept into Hana's room and hid. They poked her and prodded her from their hiding place until she woke up. Then they surprised her.
"She told us later she thought it was a dream," Nguyen said.
Hana looked at them.
"Why aren't you guys in school?" she asked.
Financial hardship
In Wichita, the friends have helped rally former teachers and others to the family's aid, holding fundraisers to help with expenses.
Eun Seo Choi, Hana's father, runs his own small retail business. The family had no health insurance.
Gregory William Davis, 27, had no insurance. He's the driver, authorities said, who hit the Choi minivan on March 15 at 4:30 a.m., killing Yuna, her mother, Kyoung Yeon Chae, and her little brother, Seo Won Choi, 9.
Authorities said Davis' blood alcohol level was .22, nearly three times the legal limit. Davis, of Wichita, also died in the crash.
"They had uninsured driver insurance, but that's capped at $300,000," said Travis Burk, a Wichita attorney representing the Choi family. "Her bill from Wesley alone is $300,000."
Add to that weeks in the Chicago rehab hospital and her continuing medical needs after she returns home.
"It's going to be astronomical," Lavacek said.
Price-Harris Elementary, where Seo Won Choi went to school, held a bowling marathon to raise money.
The Wichita swimming community — Hana and Yuna swam for East High — is selling swim caps to raise money.
A family trust has been set up at a local bank.
Hana's friends began selling wristbands that glow in the dark.
"Because even in the darkest times you can see," Nguyen said.
So far, Nguyen and Le said they've made $1,500 from the bracelets. Their goal is $2,000.
On one side, the bracelets say, "Be Choiful."
On the other, "Possibility."
'I still can't believe this has happened'
The Choi twins liked to laugh.
"The picture I have of them is sitting together at a table in class, their heads together and laughing," said Lavacek, who had the girls in seventh-grade language arts at Robinson.
This past March, Lavacek said, she was standing in line at Panera and heard some familiar giggling behind her. She turned around and saw Hana and Yuna.
"It was about a week before the accident," Lavacek said.
These days, Hana said she fights her feelings.
"Mostly, it's anger," she said. "I still can't believe this has happened."
But Hana said her Christian faith keeps her motivated, as she works through physical therapy to try to straighten her upper body and loosen her limbs.
"I think my faith in God helps me get through," she said.
"I know they're in a better place,'' she said of her sister, brother and mother. "I know they're looking down on me. And knowing my dad is OK helps."
Hana has been in one hospital or another since the accident. She wants to go home — she's scheduled to leave Friday — but she said she fears leaving the security and help of the hospital.
"I'm not sure about leaving," she said. "I like the hospital. I mean, I am psyched to go home. But I know it's going to be hard."
She plans on starting her junior year at East this fall.
"We'll be there for her every day," Le said.
