An accident and long ER visit

I write this at nearly 1AM in the morning after a long and stressful day. It will be a long night.

Today Ryan went on a hike with my father and my nephew. What started out as a great time turned into a nightmare when Ryan fell over a waterfall, dropping 12 feet to a ledge, bouncing off that and dropping another 6-7 feet. My nephew accessed his injuries and helped get him to where my father was. Together they started carrying my son through the woods, trying to get to the main path.

My son’s ankle and foot were terribly swollen and seemed to have taken the brunt of the fall. He couldn’t put any weight on it. My father is 72 years old and got quite the workout, but after a while of slow-going Ryan just couldn’t go on. He was exhausted and possibly in shock from the trauma. At that point, my nephew Dan picked him up and carried him on his back. (Reminds me of how when we can't go on, God picks us up and carries us.)

Dan is a year older than Ryan, is taller than Ryan, but weighs less than Ryan! And he was carrying him! They had no water and it was hot and they were getting dehydrated.

Dan called us on his cell phone and told us what happened. They thought they’d make it to the main path in 30 min., but it ended up taking much longer. We finally went to meet them, but couldn’t get very close with the car. We’d taken water bottles, ice packs & ace bandages & ibuprofen along.

What did we do before cell phones? My sister-in-law, Donna, decided to meet them on the trail to give them water and help carry Ryan. She and my mom wouldn’t let me attempt the walk, even with my oxygen. All 3 of us had phones and kept touching base with each other. Again, what did we do w/o cells?

3 hours after Ryan’s fall (at least!), they made it to the car. Ryan threw up a while. They guzzled every bit of water, then we got Ibup. down him and Donna wrapped his foot in ice – she’s a missionary (they are recently home on furlough) and had First Aid training and stays very cool and calm in emergencies.

Donna went with me to the ER and helped get Ryan into the wheelchair and then helped him while I did paperwork and answered questions.

Let me back up and say for those of you who don’t know, Ryan has Aspergers. His anxieties were at an all time high and his nerves were so bad his whole body was quivering and he was in a panic continually about what they were going to do to his foot. Plus the pain was so bad.

He had an Xray of his foot and a CT scan of his head, plus they checked his body over for other injuries.

His foot is broken in 4 places. They said it’s quite crushed. Right now it’s in a splint and I have to call tomorrow about taking him to the surgeon. He doesn’t understand he will be having surgery yet and I’m afraid to tell him. He thinks they will just put a cast on, but doesn’t know the rest. He’s so terrified over needles and pain and all, he just totally melts down and I just dread this.

We spent about 4 hours at the ER. We are very thankful he wasn’t killed or hurt worse in a fall like that. My dad feels just awful about the whole thing.

Tonight he’s running a fever of about 100.8, so I’m scared to go to sleep. I gave him the intercom, to call if he needs anything, but I want to keep checking on him because of the fever.

One last thing, I called Ryan’s Karate Sensei while I was waiting for them to get Ryan up the trail to the car. He called to check on Ryan this evening and then came to the ER to see him. He is such a kind man and it meant so much to Ryan that he did that!

But no Karate, swimming, skateboarding, scootering, hiking for Ryan for most of, if not all of, the summer. I feel so badly for him.

(I took these pictures yesterday - he was having so much fun! He was using his zorries - flipflops - as brakes. I know - he should have had a helmet on!)