For three days a week, Johnna Dunn works primarily in the emergency room at St. Jude Medical Center at Temecula, Calif. And she’s a first-responder in “code” situations, often administering CPR astride the patient and whisking them to urgent surgery.
At the dragstrip, she’s the assistant clutch specialist for her grandfather Jim Dunn’s Funny Car that her father Jon Dunn tunes and Jim Campbell drives. She also is an aspiring nitro-class racer.
“I get adrenaline here, and I get adrenaline there. So it’s fun,” she said during the Magic Dry NHRA Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park.
But Dunn got more excitement than she had anticipated at Chandler, Ariz. Now she’s facing surgery back home in Southern California to repair a broken nose and crushed septum (nasal cavity dividing wall). She also sustained deep-tissue bruising on her right cheek as a result of the freakish incident.
She was struck by a projectile while standing at the starting line for Campbell’s launch during Friday qualifying.
“We think it was a piece of rubber that came up from the track, and it hit her in the face,” dad Jon Dunn said. “She was the third person back, behind myself and the cameraman. It was after the burnout. When we got in the tow vehicle, I looked back at her, and she had a stunned look on her face, and I said, ‘Are you OK?’ She said, ‘No, Dad. I think something hit me.’ She grabbed her face, and her face was starting to turn black and blue.”
She said, “They did a CAT scan. They said no fracture on the cheekbone or orbital bone.”
The Dunns expressed gratitude to Donna Millican, whose husband, Clay Millican, was pitted next door with his Parts Plus/Strutmasters Dragster.
“Donna Millican was just fantastic,” Jon Dunn said. “She came over right away. She made sure Johnna got to the track doctor, then Donna took her to the hospital. As soon as I got cleaned up, I met them over there, as well.”
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