An 11-year-old West Palm Beach girl pulled from a burning vehicle in January has finally left the hospital, more than seven months after suffering severe burns across roughly 58% of her body. Abigail “Abi” Alcenat was released from the Miami Burn Center at Ryder Trauma Center this week, greeted by the same firefighters, hospital staff and friends who had followed her recovery from the very beginning.
The crash happened along the Belvedere Road corridor near Jog Road in January, according to WPEC, when Palm Beach County Fire Rescue crews arrived to find the vehicle already engulfed in flames. Rescuers pulled Abi from the burning car to safety and treated her at the scene before she was rushed to St. Mary's Medical Center. Under Palm Beach County's trauma routing protocols, patients injured north of Southern Boulevard — including along the Belvedere Road corridor — are directed to St. Mary's before any transfer to a higher-level trauma center, according to Elstein Legal.
Given the severity of her burns, Abi was flown to the Miami Burn Center, where she would remain hospitalized from January until this week. The facility, housed inside Jackson Memorial Hospital, is South Florida's only burn unit verified by the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons to treat both pediatric and adult patients at the Level 1 standard, according to Jackson Health System.
A Rare Level of Regional Trauma Care
Transfers like Abi's are made possible by Palm Beach County's aeromedical trauma program, which operates two Trauma Hawk Sikorsky S-76C+ helicopters staffed by Palm Beach County Fire Rescue medical crews for rapid transport of critically injured patients, per Palm Beach County. Those crews are equipped to administer pre-hospital whole blood transfusions directly at emergency scenes and during Trauma Hawk flights, a resuscitation capability documented by Handtevy that can be decisive in severe trauma rescues.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue operates 51 fire stations and responds to more than 150,000 emergency calls each year across unincorporated areas of the county and 19 contracted municipalities, per Wikipedia's account of the department's operations. Traffic safety analyses have flagged the Belvedere Road corridor as a heavily trafficked arterial route linking I-95, Palm Beach International Airport and western suburbs, with frequent intersection collisions, according to Advocates USA.
Seven Months of Treatment and a Familiar Face at Discharge
Once in Miami, Abi entered a facility built specifically for cases like hers. Founded in 1965, the Miami Burn Center first earned American Burn Association verification in 2008 and remains one of only five certified burn centers in Florida, per Jackson Health System. The center treats more than 600 burn patients annually from Florida and the Caribbean, admitting roughly 225 as inpatients and managing nearly 400 more through outpatient care each year, the same source notes.
Throughout Abi's hospitalization, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue crews stayed in contact with her and her family, following up over the months and working to keep her spirits high during a grueling recovery, per WPEC's reporting. That relationship, built at the scene of the crash in January, culminated this week when firefighters, hospital staff and friends gathered to cheer Abi as she was finally released.
Why Her Survival Marks a Medical Milestone
Burns covering more than half of a child's body have historically carried a high risk of death, but survival odds have shifted dramatically in recent decades. Research published by the National Institutes of Health indicates that advances in early surgical excision and critical care protocols now allow more than half of pediatric patients with severe thermal burns covering 50% to 90% of their body to survive, according to findings hosted on PMC.
Abi's discharge does not mark the end of her treatment. The Miami Burn Center offers continued outpatient resources including physical therapy, scar laser therapy and a free, bimonthly Burn Survivors Support Group led by a burn psychologist, according to Jackson Health System, resources typically integrated into long-term recovery for major burn survivors.
Abi's case adds to a string of serious traffic-related emergencies Hoodline has tracked along West Palm Beach's northern corridors this year, including a fatal Military Trail crash reported this week and an earlier catamaran capsizing that also routed critically injured victims to St. Mary's Medical Center before further treatment. Together, the incidents underscore how often the region's trauma network — from first responders on scene to the specialized burn unit in Miami — is called upon to manage the aftermath of severe accidents.
