SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — The day after surviving a crash involving two semi-trucks, dietetic intern and graduate student at Georgia Southern University, and South Lake Tahoe native, Lindsey Herring, immediately got back to working on her courses for school.

“She literally had a big concussion and within 24 hours was back to doing graduate level studies because there just wasn’t time,” Herring’s mother Tiffany Miller said. “She couldn’t afford to lose it. She’s the kind of student where if somebody else works for three hours, she’ll work for five. She’s always been that kind of student.”

Herring’s accident came a little over two weeks after she found out she was accepted into the highly competitive dietetic and nutrition internship and graduate program at GSU. The internship, which requires all students have a car and ranges around $30,000 for tuition, is one that Herring worked incredibly hard for, and made history by accepting admission.

“It’s a medical internship that is 98% white and my daughter is black,” Miller said. “She was the first black person that has ever been in this particular program at this school. And she would’ve been the first person in every program she applied to.”

Miller explained that it wasn’t important to her daughter to join the program just for her own personal education, but for the opportunities it could open for other people of color around the country.

“She wants people to be aware that this is something we need to be very supportive of people of color taking part in, which means they need more scholarships and more support for things like this,” Miller said.

She explained that the biggest hurdle for most people, including Herring, was the economic demand for the programs.

“Unfortunately, it’s so expensive,” Miller said. “The programs are so expensive that many people got priced out of them. So socioeconomically people who are already challenged, no matter what their challenges are, then are stuck with that problem of not being able to do these programs.”

Miller explained that because of the loss of Herring’s car and the building bills for her education, they started a GoFund Me in hopes of helping Herring reach her goals.

Herring’s former teacher Cliff Smith explained that even years after teaching Herring, he felt it was important to get the word out about her GoFundMe due to her caring nature that she’s carried most of her life and used to help others.

“The key thing about her was she would go around helping other students out in class,” Smith said. “That was just the kind of spirit of who she is.”

Herring’s passion for helping others has carried through most of her academic work, including her work on the Grace Project with Sacramento State University, which is focused on helping all STEM students get the necessary materials they need to be successful in their majors.

Herring’s mother said that her dedication to others started well before the Grace Project.

“She was involved in every organization you can think of that is in support of African-American students and people of color being involved in STEM programs,” Miller said. “So she has been very active in that and is so passionate.”

Herring is expected to make a full recovery, and her GoFundMe is still available.