Niki Taylor Still 'Touch and Go'

May 2, 2001 -- Model Niki Taylor has been "touch and go" since a car accident Sunday left her with severe internal injuries, her agent told Reuters today.

"They were not sure she was going to make it," her agent, Lou Taylor, said of her client, who is still in intensive care at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital.

"Right now, the doctors are saying that every hour is a good hour," said her agent, who is unrelated to the model. "They're monitoring her around the clock."

The 26-year-old's doctor, Dr. Jeffrey Nichols, said that it will be weeks before he knows whether she will fully recover from extensive liver damage suffered in the car accident.

Appearing today on ABC's Good Morning America, Nichols said that the model "lost extensive amounts of blood" and that her injuries "were life-threatening and remain that way," according to The Associated Press.

Taylor's older sister, Joelle Bolline, said that Taylor has opened her eyes and can nod and squeeze people's hands, but that she is not yet able to speak. "She knows we're all here for her," Bolline told ABC. Her parents, Barbara and Ken Taylor, were also with the model at the hospital. Her younger sister, Krissy, also a model, died of asthma in 1995 at age 17.

Taylor was riding in a friend's car early Sunday when he ran off the road and hit a utility pole, police say, apparently because he looked down to answer his cell phone.

The driver, Chad Renegar, 27, told police he lost control of the 1993 Nissan Maxima near downtown Atlanta. Police ticketed him but said they did not suspect that drugs or alcohol contributed to the accident.

Renegar and another passenger were treated and released after the accident, the AP reports. Taylor, who was wearing her seat belt, did not initially appear to be badly hurt but began to have stomach pains. "There was no head injury, no facial lacerations. It was all internal trauma," her agent told Reuters.

The single mother of 6-year-old twin boys is currently a model for Cover Girl cosmetics. Her agent said the model's sons, Jake and Hunter, were home in Florida with their father, Taylor's ex-husband, Matt Martinez.

Taylor, who has been one of the top supermodels in the country, has appeared on the cover of numerous magazines — including Vogue, Seventeen, Elle, Allure, and Marie Claire — and in calendars.