VCU Health will honor the emergency medicine first-responders, doctors, nurses and others who save trauma patients’ lives at the 10th annual Shining Knight Gala. The event raises funds for VCU Trauma Center’s Injury and Violence Prevention Program and honors those who protect and save lives in Central Virginia.
The event will take place Saturday, April 28, at the Greater Richmond Convention Center, 403 N. Third St., beginning with a reception at 6 p.m. and a dinner and awards program to follow at 7 p.m.
This year’s honorary co-chairs are Brenda and Tyler Hancock of Ford & Thomas Insurance Agency. Tyler was hit by a car and critically injured in July 2007. He spent two months recovering at VCU Medical Center and underwent eight surgeries.
This year’s featured patient is Malina Richardson, who was severely injured in a car crash on March 30, 2017, on her way home to Ashland from Radford University, where she was a senior at the time. The car Richardson was driving flipped as high as the tree line after the crash and Malina was catapulted out and pinned under the vehicle. Miraculously, her younger sister Maya, who was in the car at the time of the crash, saved Malina’s life by lifting the car and pulling her sister from underneath it.
After a month of intensive care at VCU Medical Center, Malina was escorted to her college graduation last May by the first-responders who rescued her from the scene of the crash. Less than a year later, Malina and her family will reunite with the first-responders and Malina’s entire health care team at the Shining Knight Gala.
VCU Medical Center is the only Level I adult, pediatric and burn trauma center in the region and the longest-standing, state-designated trauma center in Virginia. The Level I trauma center designation recognizes the hospital’s dedication to the highest quality care within and beyond hospital walls through teaching and research, as well as injury and violence prevention programs.
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