A Suffern High School student's harrowing experience has landed her a spot on a float at the Rose Bowl parade to promote organ donation.

Madie Nicpon, who is a senior in high school, went in to have her wisdom teeth removed during the winter of her sophomore year. She says it was right in the middle of lacrosse season and she had just landed a spot on the varsity team.

Just days after the procedure, Nicpon couldn't feel her tongue. Doctors thought it was an infection at first, but then realized it was something worse.

"There was a damage to the nerve that supplies the tongue," says Chris Nicpon, who is Madie's dad.

Luckily it was a problem that could be fixed, so she went in for a second surgery right away to have a nerve transplant.

"Skin donation, nerve donation people can donate these tissues other than hearts and everything else that they can really help someone," says Chris Nicpon.

The company that supplied the nerve graft is now giving Madie and her family an all-expense paid trip to Pasadena, California, to help promote organ donation and turn a bad thing into a good thing.

Madie plans to attend Tufts University to play lacrosse.