The TBI Chatroom |
It was early evening on June 4, 2001 my husband and I were getting ready for our youngest son's graduation party putting together a special photo album. I had dinner on waiting for our oldest son Johnnie and some of his friends to soon come home. In next few seconds our life had changed forever.
The phone rang and at the same moment the fire house siren went off, since we live in a small town the fire house was just around the corner. My husband and I will never forget that loud sound. On the phone was close friend of ours and he stated that he was 1 mile from the house and that our oldest son Johnnie was in an accident and that he did not think Johnnie was going to hang on much longer. Needless to say my husband and I were in the car and now driving to the accident following the ambulance.
They had coded Johnnie at the sight and was going to call it in until a off duty trauma nurse happen to be there and she had felt that he had a pulse.(THANK GOD) They began to do all kinds of things to Johnnie while waiting for emergency helicopter to show up. During this time I was calling to Johnnie to hang on to Jesus and not to be afraid. I wasn't sure if he could hear me but it sure would not hurt.
The helicopter soon was 7 minutes away and we took off for the hospital knowing that we would not get there before the helicopter.God put a hedge around us during that ride because I don't even remember that part of the night. When we arrived at the hospital so did Johnnie, there was a team of 20 nurses and doctors waiting for him outside and ready to do what ever they could to save his young 21 year life.
It seem to take forever to even know what Johnnie's injuries were. Finally the doctor came out and told us that our wonderful son had Severe Head and Brain Injury and that out of a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being dead that Johnnie was at a 9.
From that point we lived in the hospital and rehab for the next 2 months with Johnnie in a deep coma for 2 weeks of the 2 months. Nothing seem to make sense not the doctors nor anyone else. I guess when you hear that first he's not going to live (and he does) to that because he was in a deep coma so long that he would end up a vegetable and that we might start looking for a nursing home once they have done all that they can, we knew that our son was going to be alright. We never left his side not for a moment,and Johnnie's stay in the rehab went from what they had told us was going to be 6 months to only 6 weeks (Praise GOD).
Johnnie had to relearn everything from blinking his eyes to lifting his legs. He is doing wonderful now walking and talking. He still has a long way to go but he'll get there, the worse of it is over. We can't thank everyone enough, family, friends and all the doctors and nurses for the wonderful support and fast actions that save our Johnnie..
Most of all we thank the LORD JESUS for giving our son back to us.
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