Brig's Miracle

It's interesting how life can give you the most bitter and sweetest moments all at the same time.

On Friday evening Cory, Brig and I went up to Donnelly where I would attend our church's young women's camp for the evening and the boys would fish and play nearby.  While they were playing Cory went to take a picture of Brig and he fell from 5.5 feet (that was the height of his feet), head first onto the asphalt.  When Cory picked him up the had a depression in his head about 3/4" deep and about the diameter of a racket ball.  Instantly, Cory began to think the worst and rushed into the church camp where he told someone to find me and another man drove Brig & Cory to the local hospital. 

When they arrived at the hospital they took XRays and asked some questions and when the XRays were done they saw that he had a skull fracture and was in serious danger of  the brain hemorrhaging or swelling. Brig was given a priesthood blessing.  Finally, an hour after the initial accident, I arrived at the hospital.  They told us he needed to be life flighted and the helicopter would be there soon.  Brig was conscious throughout the entire process and was having several people strap him to boards, put IVs in his little arms, draw blood, and put a neck brace on him.  It was awful! The entire time he just sat there and begged for us to hold him. 

Finally, the helicopter arrived and we flew to the St. Als trauma center where he had more people poking and prodding (and taking very good care of him). They did a CT scan to check for bleeding and swelling and any damage to his neck.  Then we waited.

He was such a brave and good boy throughout the entire thing- as soon as the people would clear away from him, he would calm down and just ask for us to hold him (which we couldn't do yet). However, he had several moments that show just how amazing he was...

When we were headed to the helicopter we tried to distract him and show him the stars...he then let our a ferocious growl.  Why?  We aren't sure but he likes growling at the moon and I couldn't believe how tough he was being.

At St. Als, Grandpa Walker asked him if he wanted to go fishing and Brig nodded.  He asked if he was going to catch a fish this big (hands about 6 inches apart), Brig shook his head.  This big? (1 foot apart).  Brig shook his head.  This BIG? (Hands stretched as far as they would go) Brig nodded. 

Then when they finally came and told us his neck was ok and they began to take the neck brace off- he told the doctors who had been "hurting" him all night Thank You.  It melted me right then and there.

Finally, at about 1:30 am they came and told us they did find some blood on his brain and were talking to the neurologist to see what needed to happen next.  At about 2:30 they came in and told us that the blood was just seeping from the outer wound inside and that he was fine.  If we wanted to we could go home that night.

Finally, after hours of waiting...I got to hold my precious little boy who was going to be ok.  It never felt so good.

We had an incredible staff help us at St. Als and one of the life flight medics stayed at the hospital waiting for several hours.  Both he and our doctor told us that theses falls do not usually end like this.  And despite the depression that Cory (and other witnesses at the young women's camp) saw...there was never any sign of any kind in either the XRay or the CT Scan.  They said that had that been the case...he would certainly have had brain damage, paralysis, or worse. 

It was nothing short of a miracle.  We know that Heavenly Father had preserved his life right from the beginning of this whole ordeal.  We know that the Priesthood is real and that there is true power when blessings are administered.  We know that Heavenly Father loves us and loves Brig more than we can ever comprehend. 

And we are eternally grateful.

He is doing very well now.  We have to watch him for the next several weeks and try to limit his activity as much as possible since his skull is fractured and his cute little head is quite delicate.  We will meet with a neurologist soon and in a month they will do XRays again.  They said you won't be able to tell that anything ever happened.