When Sandra Brown talks about her 14-year-old daughter Amanda, you can hear the urgency in her voice. The clock is ticking for the teenager. She needs medical rehabilitation but the parents have run up against what they say is an entrenched corporate bureaucracy.

Amanda's in a semi-comatose state as a result of an accident last spring. A neurologist has told Sandra Brown that if the girl doesn't get appropriate rehabilitation, she could become "a vegetable."

"Her neurologist, from day one, said if I did not want my daughter to be a vegetable and want her back, to get her into intense rehabilitation and fight for her," says Brown.

Thing is, Brown and her husband JJ are fighting for their daughter. Only, they're fighting the insurance corporation and its policies, and that's an uphill battle.

Last May 10 Amanda Brown was just like any other teenager. She was looking forward to summer and was outside, taking advantage of the warm air, riding her bike.

"She fell and after her fall she rode her bike home," recalls Sandra Brown. "When she pulled up in the driveway I was standing in the driveway. We looked at her and asked what had happened. She said she lost her footing and fell off her bike."

Amanda Brown went inside her house. Her parents went about their business and Sandra Brown was keeping an eye on the teen. There was no indication that anything other than a scraped knee was ailing the girl.

"About 35 minutes later she let out this shrill scream and that was unlike Amanda because she wasn't a whiny child," says Sandra Brown. "She started screaming about her head. Once she stood up she started becoming like a noodle."

Sandra Brown, with her husband following, started rushing Amanda to the hospital. She asked to pull over, reached outside the car and became what Sandra Brown describes as "violently sick."

"My husband grabbed her out of the car and rushed her to the Albemarle Hospital emergency room," says Sandra. "I drove 80 mph the whole way and they were already in a room when I got there."

After an MRI, doctors realized Amanda had a head fracture and a clot. Within 40 minutes the hospital put her on a helicopter and flew her to Children's Hospital of the King's Daughter in Norfolk, Va.

"She was taken immediately to brain surgery to remove the clot," says Sandra.

That was a Thursday. By Friday Amanda Brown was in critical condition. The teen wasn't waking up from surgery fast enough.

The hospital took two CAT scans and quickly realized that the 14-year-old girl had experienced a stroke. She had, her mother recalls, a 40 percent chance of living.

Amanda required a breathing and a feeding tube. She was on life support for a time, but eventually was taken off and can now breathe on her own.

That's when she was moved to Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greenville for head trauma rehabilitation. And that's when, Sandra Brown says, things were beginning to look up.

"Each day Amanda received four hours of rehabilitation," says Sandra. "Physical therapy twice a day. Occupational therapy and speech twice a day."

So things were looking up. Therapists at Pitt Memorial, Sandra Brown recalls, were very optimistic. Amanda was making progress.

And then, Sandra Brown received an early morning phone call on Sept. 5. Her insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield, wasn't willing to continue coverage of Amanda's therapy without her physician at Pitt consulting with one of their corporate doctors.

The doctor, for whatever reason, wasn't willing to consult and the insurance provider simply discontinued coverage of Amanda's rehabilitation, says Sandra.

"The doctor said she wasn't progressing enough and the best thing to do was to send her home," Sandra recalls.

Thing is, Sandra says Amanda requires round the clock attention and unless she is to eventually live her entire life in a vegetative state, she needs therapy. Right now, Amanda can see you and hear you and she can answer questions with her eyes. The extent of her condition may worsen, but Sandra Brown says the neurologist insists, "she can recover 100 percent" with therapy.

But the therapy, it would seem, isn't going to happen at a hospital, so the family is trying to build a room onto the house just for Amanda. The room would have a hospital bed, lifts and other pieces of equipment that would give Amanda a fighting chance, albeit not the same chance she might have at a proper rehabilitation center, says Sandra.

Friends and family are pitching in, throwing a benefit fundraiser for Amanda, but in the meantime, the situation is taking its toll, Sandra Brown says.

"I have a 6-year-old child," she says. "I have good family support. I don't know, it'll hit me eventually. I have to stay strong for Amanda. You don't have time to break down. And trying to keep my 6-year old mentally stable ..."

She and her husband are appealing their insurance provider's ruling that they will not cover Amanda's rehabilitation. They have several appeals to go through before they exhaust their options with Blue Cross and are able to qualify for Medicaid assistance.

But by then, Sandra Brown says it could be too late. Time is not on Amanda's side.

"They (insurance provider) are telling me that because of the policy she doesn't qualify for long term care," says Sandra. "And you can appeal if you want. But if you look on that piece of paper they have time to respond and my daughter is in a semi-coma now and six months from now, if she sits there, she is going to turn into a vegetable!"

And it's all frustrating, and desperate. Sandra Brown says it was the stroke that ultimately led her daughter down this path. And if her daughter had been elderly, Sandra Brown is certain the coverage would not have been denied. It doesn't, she says, make sense to her.

So for now, Sandra Brown cares for her daughter and she fights for the child's life. And she's convinced that a good fight may just pay off in the end.

"I believe if you fight hard enough, I believe there's a miracle out there for Amanda," says Sandra.

YOU CAN HELP

Camden County residents have rallied together to create the Amanda Brown Benefit Day. Saturday, at Camden County High School, for a $7 donation, you can enjoy food and activities from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. while helping Amanda afford the help she needs to rehabilitate. For more information call 619-1248.