COURTESY DEBBIE ENGLE Julia Engle's sister, 10-year-old Christina, above, represented Julia in the Punahou May Day program on Thursday. Julia had been selected as a princess. After she was hospitalized, the class took the unusual step of asking Christina, a fourth-grader, to step in. The photo below is of Julia prior to the accident.

Headed home?

Julia Engle, 12, the victim of
a falling tree, is talking again

The 12-year-old Manoa girl who was injured when a tree fell on her bedroom last month might recover enough to return home from the hospital Friday, according to her family.

Julia Engle is getting stronger and is able to slowly walk up and down flights of stairs, her mother, Debbie, said. And she said Julia is talking.

"She opens her mail, and she reads her letters aloud to us. So that's encouraging," Engle said.

But she said her daughter's recovery is "still a wait-and-see. It's a day-to-day thing."

Julia was in a coma for nearly three weeks after a large pine tree crashed through her bedroom March 15. When she emerged from her coma, she was unable to speak.

Engle would not comment on whether her daughter remembers anything from the morning the tree fell as she slept or if she knows what happened to her.

Engle was at Punahou School on Thursday and yesterday to watch her younger daughter fill in for Julia on the school's May Day court.

Julia was selected to be on the court for the middle and elementary schools during auditions last December.

"Julia was supposed to be one of the princesses, and we already started practice. When the accident happened the girls didn't want anyone else to replace her," said Calvena Moe, a Punahou alumna who helps the court prepare for their performances.

Only seventh- and eighth-graders can be on the court. But Moe asked Julia's 10-year-old sister, Christina, a Punahou fourth-grader, if she would take her older sister's place, and she agreed.

"I wanted to do this for my sister to represent her," Christina said.

The court performed twice Thursday for Punahou's middle school and twice yesterday for the elementary grades.

Engle said the city removed a second large pine tree next to the family's home. They can move back in but have chosen not to because Christina wants to wait until her sister can leave the hospital.

"I miss my sister, and I want to be in the house with her instead of without her," Christina said.