photo by: Contributed

Brooke Mesa Hislar is pictured with her daughter.

A woman who was critically injured in a motorcycle crash Thursday in North Lawrence is still fighting for her life in a Topeka hospital.

Brooke Mesa Hislar, 27, of Leavenworth, a passenger on the motorcycle, was thrown as the 2009 Yamaha crashed into the back of a Jeep Compass and caught fire during a police chase on North Second Street.

Hislar had never been on a motorcycle before, Donna Sinyard, who identified herself as her sister, told the Journal-World Monday, and now she is in an induced coma with “a bad brain injury.”

“At any point in time, she could be gone,” Sinyard, of Flagstaff, Arizona, said she feared.

She said Hislar had miraculously not broken any bones, but the swelling in her brain was keeping her in the induced coma for now. Though Hislar had been wearing a helmet, Sinyard said that she had heard it wasn’t strapped on correctly and “didn’t do much.”

“There can be so many different things that can be wrong,” said Sinyard, of what doctors might find when Hislar comes out of the coma. “Praying is all that we can do at this point.”

Sinyard, who said she is now caring for Hislar’s 3-year-old daughter, said that Hislar moved to Leavenworth from Arizona in 2019. She thought that Hislar had been dating the motorcycle’s driver, Dillon Paul Herken, 26, of Easton, for a few months. She said she didn’t understand why Herken didn’t let her off the allegedly stolen motorcycle before he decided to flee from a state trooper, taking the couple on a dangerous high-speed chase through two counties.

The Kansas Highway Patrol said that a trooper attempted to stop Herken for a registration violation on U.S. Highway 24 just east of Kansas Highway 16 in Leavenworth County. Herken failed to stop and a pursuit ensued, continuing into Douglas County, where Herken turned left at the U.S. 24/40/59 junction and fled into Lawrence, where he rear-ended the Jeep at high speed. Herken was seen standing and walking after the impact while Hislar was immobile on the ground. The occupants of the Jeep were reportedly not injured.

“He didn’t take her life seriously,” Sinyard said. “Why didn’t he just let her off?”

Court records indicate that Herken was due to appear, but did not show, in Douglas County District Court 15 minutes before the crash occurred in relation to a misdemeanor stalking charge.

Herken has had numerous run-ins with the law in Douglas, Leavenworth and Atchison counties, including convictions for theft, identity theft, violations of drug and gun laws and various driving infractions, including multiple incidents of speeding.

In the crash case he faces multiple felonies, including aggravated battery, flee and elude, theft of a motorcycle, unlawful vehicle registration and operating a motor vehicle without the proper license. He remained in the Douglas County Jail Monday on a $100,000 bond. His next court date is Wednesday.