Taylor "Well" After Surgery

Thu., May. 3, 2001 12:30 PM PDT by Josh Grossberg

Niki Taylor has undergone surgery on her lungs and liver as doctors try to and repair the severe internal injuries she suffered from a near-fatal weekend car crash.

According to the model's publicist, the surgery began Thursday morning and lasted several hours. Taylor was said to be "doing well" following the operation but still in critical condition.

The 26-year-old fashionista has been in the intensive care unit of Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital since early Sunday, after the Nissan Maxima in which she was a passenger struck a utility pole.

Chad Renegar, the driver and an old friend of the model, said he looked down to answer his cell phone when he lost control of the vehicle on an off-ramp and veered off the road. He and another passenger were treated for minor injuries and released, while Taylor sustained life-threatening injuries to her lungs and liver. Her family and doctors hope the surgery will improve her condition.

Appearing on ABC's Good Morning America Thursday, Renegar warned of the dangers of using a cell phone while driving a car.

"I was distracted by something that was not part of what I should have been doing at the moment, which was driving," Renegar said. "The result of that has changed the lives of three people and their families. Think about things like that. There's nothing on that phone that can be nearly as important as what's going on in front of you."

Taylor was wearing her seatbelt at the time and was thought to be unhurt after the crash, which occurred near downtown Atlanta. However, she soon began experiencing intense abdominal pain and was hospitalized, her condition quickly downgraded to critical.

The model's older sister, Joelle Bolline, told GMA that before the surgery Taylor was awake, but unable to speak due to the heavy sedation.

"She knows we're all here for her," Bolline said, adding that the slender supermodel opened her eyes, nodded and responded to her parents, Barbara and Ken Taylor, by squeezing their hands.

Taylor's physician, Dr. Jeffrey Nichols, also appeared on the show and said he won't know for several weeks whether Taylor will fully recover from the extensive damage done to her liver. He added that the model had lost a lot of blood and her injuries "were life-threatening, and remain that way."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that driving accidents caused by distracting devices such as cell phones account for one-quarter of all 6.3 annual automobile accidents in the U.S. As a result, some areas of the country have moved to pass laws banning handheld cell phones from being used in cars.

Taylor, a native Floridian, shot to stardom at the age of 14 when she landed on the cover of Seventeen magazine. In addition to her famous swimsuit spreads in Sports Illustrated, she has traipsed the runway for the world's top fashion designers and appeared in commercials for Cover Girl and Liz Claiborne.

The leggy blonde, who's the mother of twin 6-year-old boys, was in Atlanta visiting friends for the weekend and was about to return home to Fort Lauderdale to begin acting lessons. (At the time of the accident, her sons were home in Florida with their father and Taylor's ex-husband, Matt Martinez.)

Taylor is no stranger to tragedy. She lost her then-17-year-old younger sister, Krissy, also a model, to an asthma attack and undiagnosed heart condition in 1995. Niki had returned to the family home in Pembroke Pines, Florida, and found Krissy unconscious on the floor. Medical technicians failed to revive her.