Brilea Southard has been in the hospital for 325 days, recovering from severe injuries after another car crashed head-on into her family’s mini-van.
She wasn’t supposed to be released for another month but after a surprise announcement, the 15-year-old will take her first steps outside the hospital in a very memorable way: she’ll be heading to Taylor Swift’s third Eras Tour show in Indianapolis on Sunday, Nov. 3, the final Swift concert in the Indiana captial.
Southard is not the only one who will get to enjoy 34-year-old Swift’s sold-out tour. The teen will be joined by 15 fellow patients at the Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis who are all undergoing treatment for a range of health concerns.
The 16 pediatric patients found out the news this week at the hospital, where they thought they were just attending a Swift-inspired event to make friendship bracelets and play “Taylor Trivia.”
The last trivia question revealed the big surprise. “Who will be at Taylor’s final show on the last leg of her U.S. tour in Indianapolis?,” the hospital staffer asked.
“Um … Travis Kelce?” guessed a patient.
Riley Children’s Foundation
“Good guess but no,” they were told. “You all will be going!”
One girl jumped out of her chair with excitement and others gasped and began crying with joy.
The news of their concert tickets might be the best update some of the children have had in a while. For Southard, the exciting trip comes after she and her family were involved in a crash in December 2023, where she sustained a torn aorta and legs so badly crushed that doctors said they would need to be amputated.
Riley Children’s Foundation
“I only had a four percent chance of surviving,” Southard tells PEOPLE. She’s since undergone more than 20 surgeries, but her intestines and other organs remain shredded and “she has wound management and dressing changes twice a week under sedation,” her mother, Paula Allen, explains to PEOPLE.
Thankfully, doctors were able to save her legs.
A long-time Swiftie who has dressed up like the superstar for Halloween, Southard says the pop superstar’s music relaxes her during painful procedures, so the chance to see her perform live is “just very mind-blowing.”
“It’s going to mean so much,” Southard adds. The teen plans to wear black flare leggings and a sequined fringed jacket and will be accompanied by two nurses and a doctor and then return immediately afterwards.
“I feel very blessed,” she tells PEOPLE.
Riley Children’s Foundation
Another patient who was surprised with free suite tickets during the event is Emma Sully, 12, who received a heart transplant at Riley in December 2022.
“I literally can’t stop crying right now!,” Sully says. “I can’t right now … I just can’t. I can’t hold back my emotions anymore.”
Ja’isaibella (Izzy) Boyd, 7, will also be heading to the show. She has sickle cell disease, an inherited blood disorder that leads to life-limiting complications.
Boyd’s mother, DeAndria Powell, explains that Swift’s music has helped her daughter deal with her difficult diagnosis.
“One of her songs, ‘Shake It Off,’ is one of the songs we use when a pain crisis starts,” she said. “We always try to shake it off before we take any medications, we see if we can shake it off.”
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Another concert-goer will be Charily Carty, 11, who, at 2 years old, was diagnosed with Beals Syndrome, which caused her to develop severe early onset scoliosis. She’s undergone bracing and casting of her spine, corrective surgery and will require more surgery in the future.
Hearing the concert news was a welcome bright spot for the young girl, who was wearing pink heart-shaped sunglasses. “I felt like I was going to cry with how happy I was,” Carty, who plans to hand out friendship bracelets to other kids at the show, says.
The tickets were donated by Riley Children’s Foundation and Denney Excavating, according to a hospital spokesperson.
Swift will continue her Eras Tour at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis on Saturday, Nov. 2 and Sunday, Nov. 3.
