After devastating injuries, Iowa tennis player fundraising for nurses

IOWA CITY — About to graduate with a psych degree in spring 2024, her focus turned toward the medical college admission test, University of Iowa senior Krisha Keeran on March 13 had just finished taking her final MCAT practice exam when she and her dad took off for a bike ride together.

On a path in her hometown of Cedar Falls, a few minutes past 3:30 p.m., 22-year-old Krisha was hit by a GMC pickup that had veered off the road near the entrance of Pheasant Ridge Golf Course.

“I don’t have any memory of this day due to the injuries,” she said. “But toxicology reports later showed us that the driver was under the influence of drugs.”

Krisha was transported to an emergency room in Waterloo before being airlifted to University of Iowa Health Care, where she was placed in intensive care with traumatic brain injury and bleeding, damage to her right shoulder, and several fractures including to the skull, spine, ribs, and wrist.

Her week in the UIHC surgical and neurosciences intensive care unit was followed by two weeks in inpatient rehab at UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s in Cedar Rapids.

“I was discharged in April, but was in no condition to return to school and live independently,” said Krisha, who returned to her Cedar Falls home for outpatient occupational, physical, and speech therapy. “Obviously I wasn't able to take the MCAT because I was in an ICU.”

But the university did work with her to finish her last semester of undergrad.

“So I didn't have to drop out of college.”

Thanks to Zoom and other virtual options for course completion, Krisha graduated in spring 2024 with a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Iowa.

‘I loved it’

Iowa isn’t where Krisha started her higher education journey — having played varsity tennis all four years at Cedar Falls High School and serving as team captain her sophomore through senior years. Earning first-team all state, among other accomplishments, Krisha in 2020 committed to play tennis at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

But that was during COVID, stripping her of the freshman student-athlete experience she imagined.

“Classes were online and we were training for tennis, but we weren't really competing,” she said.

Krisha was living in the residence halls — but she was in a solo room because of COVID.

“It was definitely not what I thought college would be like,” she said, characterizing the experience as isolating — although tennis gave her community. “I was really happy, because tennis always let me interact with people.”

Still, after that first year, Krisha thought a return to Iowa would make more sense.

The University of Iowa — like the rest of the Board of Regents system — was shifting back to in-person classes for fall 2021, while Case Western was staying remote.

“It just made more sense for me to come closer to home,” she said. “It also ended up being cheaper.”

Although not a member of the Hawkeye women’s tennis team, Krisha became president of the Iowa Tennis Club.

“We would travel,” she said. “We went to nationals, so we would go to Arizona and Florida.”

Joining the club also helped her balance the student-athlete experience in pursuit of a psychology degree.

“I loved it,” Krisha said of her time as a Hawkeye.

‘Club Kids for a Cause’

As a new graduate in 2024 — laid up with injuries to her head, neck, and spine — Krisha had a decision to make.

“Should I still apply to medical school?” she said. “And I was like, you know what? Let’s do it.”

She spent the summer studying, working, writing essays, and spinning them out to medical schools across the Midwest, including the UI Carver College of Medicine.

“I did get into Carver, and I am going to Carver,” Krisha said of her plans to pursue psychiatric medicine in fall 2025.

“Throughout college, I volunteered as a crisis counselor for the Crisis Text Line. I've volunteered at the free mental health clinic here in Iowa City,” she said. “So a lot of my interests have been around mental health.”

But even before enrolling in college and becoming a Hawkeye and volunteering and working in health care settings — where in 2024 she found herself as a patient — Krisha and a high school friend in 2018 started a nonprofit that would prove prophetic.

“The receptionist at our tennis club was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, so we wanted to do something for her,” Krisha said. “We were able to raise over $9,000, which was able to move her into a nursing home.”

That fundraiser also showed the woman how many people were rallying behind her.

“And we were like, ‘Why does this have to be a one time thing?’”

Thus was born “Club Kids for a Cause,” founded around the mission to “release the financial strain on those afflicted by health care challenges.”

Most of the fundraising happens through benefit tennis tournaments, silent auctions, and merchandise sales.

“From 2018 to now we've raised over $65,000 and we've donated all of it, which has been really cool,” Krisha said. “We're able to really make an impactful difference on people's lives.”

The group typically does two tournaments a year — looking for Iowa-based individuals to help.

“If we don't have an individual, we currently have three funds that we consistently donate to,” Krisha said.

Those groups include the Jennifer Mackey Scholl Fund, founded in honor of a Des Moines nurse who died of pancreatic cancer; and the Child Life Fund for Blank Children’s Hospital, in honor of Morgan Seashore, an Iowa tennis player who survived leukemia.

The third group recipient emerged from Krisha’s recent experience as a patient herself in the UIHC surgical and neurosciences intensive care unit.

“We're going to donate money to the SNICU in Iowa City for nurse education,” she said, highlighting the ways in which she benefited from the exceptional care she received. “This is going to benefit the SNICU nurses at the University of Iowa Health Care who are planning to pursue advanced education.”

Money raised through the upcoming Club Kids for a Cause USTA-sanctioned tournament July 11-13 will go entirely to the new Krisha Keeran Fund for SNICU Nurse Education.

“I’m not getting any of the money,” she said.

But Krisha will get to pursue another of her new passions — bike safety.

“We want to do something about bike safety because wearing a helmet is what saved my life,” she said. “So we're partnering with the Iowa Bicycle Coalition, and they're going to be donating helmets to us.”

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Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com