{"id":198256,"date":"2026-02-28T16:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/198256\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T16:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T16:39:10","slug":"longtime-oakland-county-server-badly-hurt-in-crash-now-the-restaurants-fighting-for-her","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/198256\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime Oakland County server badly hurt in crash. Now the restaurant\u2019s fighting for her"},"content":{"rendered":"

WATERFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. \u2013 A longtime server at a restaurant in Oakland County was critically injured in a car crash, and now her coworkers are coming together to help.<\/p>\n

Owners of Flights of Fancy Restaurant<\/a> in Waterford Township<\/a> are asking customers for their support after a longtime server, 45-year-old Amy Kuechle, was critically injured in a single-car crash Saturday.<\/p>\n

Co-owner Kristen Robinette said staff immediately knew something was wrong when Kuechle didn\u2019t show up for her shift the next day. <\/p>\n

The owners quickly organized a GoFundMe<\/a> to help cover medical costs and are asking patrons to give what they can.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people know her and love her here; there\u2019s not one person here that she has not touched,\u201d Robinette said.<\/p>\n

Robinette said Kuechle is a familiar presence at the restaurant and a central part of its atmosphere in Waterford<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s someone when she walks through the door, everyone\u2019s going to smile because you first know you\u2019re going to have fun, she\u2019s going to do something crazy and wild, and she just brings joy to everyone,\u201d Robinette said.<\/p>\n

Robinette and co-owner Cody Syrocki said Kuechle left work around 9 p.m Saturday evening and later got into a crash off Highway M-59. The following day, the pair said they received a call that she was in critical condition and on a ventilator.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has never missed a day, she\u2019s never been late, and we got a phone call saying she\u2019s in the hospital, critical condition, on a ventilator,\u201d Robinette said.<\/p>\n

Kuechle suffered multiple broken ribs, severe blood loss, and underwent emergency surgery to have her spleen removed. Robinette said she is being slowly weaned off the ventilator.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s very sedated still, so they\u2019re trying to see if she\u2019s able to tolerate it, but her oxygen was still struggling when we saw her last,\u201d Robinette said.<\/p>\n

Kuechle is a single mother of two children, ages 8 and 15, and her job at the restaurant is her primary source of income.<\/p>\n

The GoFundMe campaign started by Robinette and Syrocki has already raised more than $2,000. <\/p>\n

You can make a donation here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know this is a long struggle,\u201d Robinette said. \u201cThis is going to be a recovery that she\u2019s going to have to battle herself, but we\u2019re going to support her in every way we can and those kids and try to help them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WATERFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. \u2013 A longtime server at a restaurant in Oakland County was critically injured in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,904,145,144,30022,8093],"class_list":{"0":"post-198256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-oakland","9":"tag-oakland-county","10":"tag-oakland-headlines","11":"tag-oakland-news","12":"tag-waterford","13":"tag-waterford-township"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}