Aurora High School Grad in Critical Condition After Fall in Spain

A 2012 West Aurora High School graduate known for her community work in Aurora and Milwaukee is in critical condition after she fell and hit her head while on her way to a Sunday evening religious service in Madrid, Spain.

Jennifer Waters, a junior at Marquette University studying abroad, fell and was seriously injured after she was “grazed by a car,” according to a Sunday letter sent to students by the university.

Waters was immediately taken to a nearby hospital to be treated. According to Christina Tammen, a West High social studies teacher who’s been in touch with the Waters family, the university student sustained a cranial fracture and was placed into a medically-induced coma. She has undergone at least three surgeries — at first to stop bleeding, then to relieve pressure on her brain.

Waters was placed into a deeper coma Wednesday because her pressure was up, according to a Facebook post from her mother. Doctors are cooling Waters’ body to help keep her pressure down. Family, friends and Waters’ host family in Madrid are with her, her mother said.

“We trust that the doctors have done everything and in the correct order,” Lisa Waters posted on Facebook. “They have exhausted all options known. Now we need to be patient and know that Jen is in God’s hands!”

Jennifer Waters was an active student at West High and Marquette University, Tammen said. She was in West High’s band and choir and was instrumental in running a student-led bible study group called Breakthrough. She also was part of the Invisible Children Club that raised money to help children in northern Uganda affected by the ongoing violent conflict in the region.

When a close friend of Waters’ was diagnosed with cancer, she organized a group of students to pray for him and offered to help his family, Tammen said.

“She has a very bubbly, vibrant personally, she has a great sense of humor,” said Tammen, who worked with Waters through Breakthrough and Invisible Children. “She got along with everybody.”

Waters is studying business administration at Marquette, a Jesuit university in Milwaukee, and was honored last school year by the university with an award for her contributions to spiritual development and justice education. On trips home from college, Waters often stopped by West High to visit with her former teachers and the clubs she was involved in, Tammen said.

According to Waters’ Facebook page, she’d begun studying at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid in September.

West Aurora and Aurora University, where Jennifer’s mother is the director of special projects, both coordinated events this week for students and staff to pray for Waters.

West Aurora students gathered after school on Tuesday to pray and posted their well wishes for Waters on YouTube. Tammen said the gathering was “very sincere” and “touched a lot of kids.”

Aurora University held a noon service Wednesday in the university’s Lowry Chapel where more than 50 attendees prayed for Waters and her family and lit candles for them.

“It’s a terrible situation and we’re all thinking of Lisa and Jen and everyone else in the family,” said Steven McFarland, the university’s spokesman.

Tammen sent an email to West Aurora staff Tuesday describing Waters as “a Blackhawk down but not out.”

“I think that’s the perspective everyone needs to keep,” she said. “I would just ask that the Aurora community continue to hold prayer gatherings. I believe that makes a difference and so does the family.”