GREENVILLE, N.C. — A Kennewick soldier who survived two tours of duty in Afghanistan is fighting for his life at a North Carolina hospital after his car crashed into a tree.

Caleb Darling, 23, has been in a coma since the Feb. 10 wreck and needs multiple surgeries, said his mother-in-law, Joy Bankston of Kennewick.

Caleb's wife, Kathleen, also was injured in the crash, but the driver's side of the car sustained the most damage, Bankston said. Kathleen, also 23, has a couple of staples in her head and a bruised left shoulder but is otherwise OK, her mother said.

"He got it all. It's his left side that's pretty banged up," Bankston said. "The roof of the car caved in on the left side of his head."

Caleb, who also goes by Cale, is in stable but critical condition at Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville, N.C., Bankston said.

Bankston, Cale's mother and some close friends are in Greenville providing support to Kathleen and taking shifts so someone always is in the room with Cale, Bankston said.

Late Tuesday, Cale was in surgery to fix a broken femur. He also will need surgeries to fix facial fractures and a fractured pelvis, Bankston said.

"He's slowly improving and they have to do all these procedures slowly," she said. "Until he wakes up, there's no indication of does he have brain damage or doesn't he."

Cale, a 2004 Kennewick High graduate, is a Army sergeant and was stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y. He was in Afghanistan as an intelligence analyst and returned home to Kennewick from his second tour at Christmas.

Cale was on terminal leave and set to be discharged from the Army on April 24, but the Army since has canceled his leave and put him back on active duty, Bankston said. The change means the family can now receive additional assistance through the military and Cale's medical care is covered, she said.

The couple were heading to Beulaville, N.C., to visit Kathleen's brother, and planned to stay for a day, then take a train back to the Tri-Cities to visit friends and family, pack up the rest of their belongings and drive back to North Carolina, Bankston said. Kathleen had been living in Kennewick with her mother while Cale was in Afghanistan.

Cale was following Kathleen's brother and was about one-tenth of a mile from his house when a teenage boy pulled out of a driveway in front of Cale's car, Bankston said. Cale apparently swerved to avoid the car, but lost control when he went into the gravel on the side of the road and slammed into a tree, she said.

Cale had been in an induced coma since the crash, but on Monday doctors took him off the medication to see if he would wake up on his own. They removed a monitor that was keep tracking of swelling in his brain and they also removed the ventilator tube, Bankston said.

He still has a tracheotomy tube, but he's initiating the breathing now, rather than the machine do it, she said. Cale also has optical nerve damage, but his retinas are good. Two days ago, however, he started leaking spinal fluid from his left ear.

"The first few days were hard (for Kathleen) because she was so afraid that she wasn't going to walk out of the hospital with him," Bankston said. "He looked pretty bad. He had tubes and machines all over him and he was all bandaged up."

As Cale improves, Kathleen gets better and finally is leaving the hospital at night to try to get some rest, her mother said. The group is sharing a hotel room to keep costs down. The girls usually stay at the hospital during the day and the boys sleep, then they switch with the boys taking the night shift at Cale's bedside while the girls get some rest, Bankston said.

"He hasn't opened his eyes, but there's movement under his eyelids," Bankston said. "We believe he can hear us."

Kathleen sits in her husband's room and reads the Bible to him and Cale responds mostly to her, Bankston said. Tuesday, when Kathleen was reading, Cale's head and lips moved and at one point it seemed like he was trying to shift positions, Bankston said.

"It looks like he's going to pull through this unless during one of these other surgeries he has to go through something goes wrong," she said.

Cale's family and friends are keeping a blog updated to let others know how he's doing and Bankston said they're grateful for all the support, prayers and well wishes that have been coming in from everyone they know.

"We've got a lot of people trying to help us out so it doesn't make too big a hardship on any of us," she said. "We wouldn't be doing as good as we are ... if we didn't have the support of so many people," she said.

An account is being set up for donations and a link is expected to be posted to the blog soon for Paypal donations, Bankston said.

Updates will be posted at caledarling.blogspot.com.

-- Paula Horton: 582-1556; phorton@tricityherald.com