Canyon's Accident

On Thursday, March 16th, I received a phone call no mother ever wants to receive.

"Mrs. Potter, you son Canyon fell off the playground equipment today & he is paralyzed & can't move!  We need to transport him by ambulance to the hospital as soon as possible.  Can you meet us at the hospital?"

There were so many words repeating through my head as she spoke:

Canyon - Fell - Paralyzed - NOT Moving - Ambulance - Hospital

I answered through tears & fear that I'd meet them at LRMC hospital on Landstuhl base.  I hung up the phone & pulled myself together as quickly as I could & got in the car.  The principal called back & told me to come straight to the school instead because they wouldn't transport him without a parent present.  So I hopped into the van & drove straight to his school tears streaming down my face.  I hastily parked my van in an emergency parking spot directly in front of the school & ran toward the playground where I could see fireman & doctors gathered around a figure lying on the ground.  My poor baby was lying there & he wasn't moving.

I sat down next to him & kissed his face. I grabbed his hand & told him I was there & that I wouldn't leave.  He had tears streaming down his face & he kept telling me how his back hurt SO bad.  I reached down & touched his foot & remarkably his foot pushed back against my touch.

"Canyon, can you move your feet?"

His foot wiggled as he winced.  He was NOT paralyzed, just in shock.  Thank heavens.

I sat with him on the playground while they kept him still, put a blanket on him, & then put in an IV to give him some pain meds & fluids before transporting him.  They were pretty sure his back was broken so they wanted to make sure he couldn't feel pain when they attempted to move him.

At this point, Trek came pedaling up on his bike.  He had ridden his bike to work & had gotten word in his office that his son had been in an accident.  He is not allowed to have a phone where he works due to the nature of his work, so someone in another office had to go looking for him to give him word on what had happened.

Once the ambulance arrived we realized he would not be taking him to the Army hospital on base, but instead to the kinder trauma unit at the Kaiserslautern hospital.  LRMC didn't have good enough care for child emergencies so he'd be in better hands at the Ktown hospital.  They took several people & got him scooped up onto a stretcher without moving his back at all.  Then they wrapped him in what looked like a river raft.  They sucked all the air out of the "raft" which hugged Canyon super tight where he couldn't move at all.

Even though things were happening all around him, he smiled & laughed & joked through the pain.  He's definitely still Canyon even in the worst situation possible.  I love this kid so much.

The put him on a stretcher & took him to the ambulance.  I went with him & Trek put his bike In my van & followed us behind the ambulance.

The ambulance ride was really cool.  We got to see the flashing lights & heard the siren the whole way there.  They had called the polizei beforehand & the cops had entire stretches of road completely blocked off so we could make our way to the hospital as fast as possible.

Canyon was on a really cool contraption that moved up & down as the ambulance sped.  It was like a bed with shock absorbers so that he didn't move AT ALL the entire ride, even when hitting pot holes or bumps.  It was incredible.

Once we got to the hospital, they wheeled him into a surgery room (& allowed me inside with him) where about 20 doctors went to work to determine if anything life threatening was happening with his body.  They did several ultrasounds at once looking for internal bleeding, they were poking his fingers & toes to check for feeling in the nerve endings.  Some people were listening to his heart & lungs & others were flashing lights in his eyes & ears.  One doctor was pushing on different parts of his body trying to find where the pain was. . . he was on morphine at this point & could only talk about how blue the sky was.  He wasn't feeling any pain anymore.

Once they knew he'd be okay, they wheeled him to radiation for several xrays.  The poor little guy had compression fractures on 3 of his lumbar vertebrae.  Apparently he didn't "fall" from the playground, but had to have "jumped" (which Canyon confirmed later that evening) & didn't bend his knees when he landed.  He landed with his legs locked & it sent a shockwave through his spine & broke his back.

We sat in the ER room for over 8 hours waiting to be taken back to a room for the night.  There was only one doctor & one nurse on staff that day & they were trying to take care of 60+ ER patients.  I felt so bad for them.

When we finally got up to the 4th floor children's ward, things were nicer.  They put Canyon In an electric bed that moves up & down without bending his back & they immediately brought him food (which was a piece of bread & a piece of cheese, but it was something.)

Trek spent the night there the first night.  I stayed until about 10:30 & my dear friend Jessica came with her husband to give Canyon a blessing.  Then she drove me home in my van because I was still a little shaken up by everything that had happened that day.

I stayed up until 2am at home getting things ready for St. Patrick's Day, Craiger's bday party, & then made a small St. Patrick's Day coded activity hunt for Canyon that he could do in his hospital bed.  I woke up early, got the rest of the kids to school, then went straight back to the hospital again.  I took Trek a bunch of things he needed & brought some things for Canyon too.

We spent the day doing little St. Patrick's Day wordsearches & other fun activities to keep him busy.  I brought him a "treasure" & we enjoyed that together as well.  I had to leave at 3:00 in the afternoon so I could be home when the kids got home from school, so Trek stayed one more night with him.

Canyon had some friends from church visit him.  They brought some cookies & chocolate & sat with him for a while.  Canyon loves friends.

Saturday morning I took Craiger & his friends to a gemstone mine for Craiger's birthday, but after I finished taking his friends home, I went straight to the hospital & switched with Trek.  I let him go home & I stayed the night.  Poor Canyon was so sick of the food at the hospital at this point.  For breakfast & dinner they brought bread, sometimes cheese, & sometimes a piece of lunch meat.  It was pretty sad, but that is a typical German breakfast.  For lunch we got more of a dinner.  He got spaghetti one day, but it was spaghetti noodles with carrots & tomato sauce which wasn't very good.

But I got some meat & creamed spinach which turned out to be quite delicious.

On Saturday afternoon we got some more visitors that stopped by to play some board games with Canyon.  He loved that.

That afternoon, our peace & quiet in our hospital room went away.  A poor little 10 month old with RSV got moved into our hospital room & his family stayed with him while I stayed with Canyon for the last 3 days of our stay in the hospital.  They were super sweet, but it was miserable being in that tiny room with 2 hurt/sick kids, 2 moms, & whatever other family members wanted to visit/stay for a while.  The poor baby was coughing & crying all day & all night.  We got 0 sleep & I was SO scared Canyon would catch the RSV & cough (which would irritate his back).  Luckily we were fine & it turned out okay.

The other family was super sweet & came from Romania.  The daughter spoke really good English (for being about 12) so we talked through her which was so impressive.  I was able to get to know the other mom really well.  I love making new friends.

On Sunday, Trek came over around noon so that I could go to church, then after church we swapped back & I stayed Sunday night with Canyon.

Finally, on Monday afternoon, they allowed Canyon to go home.  He had to complete some physical therapy & they wouldn't let us leave until they taught me how to do the physical therapy at home with him twice a day for 3 weeks.

We were SO happy to get home again after 5 days of hospital life.  He has a 3 week recovery mostly lying on his back or sitting for short periods of time, physical therapy 2 times a day, & he can't return to sports or recess for a month, but we're happy with the diagnosis.  3 weeks will be fine.  Although we had to cancel our big spring break trip to Croatia, we are just grateful he is home, alive, & able to walk.  What a blessing.