Josh's Accident and Situation

Our 24-year old son Josh was in a very serious motorcycle accident on Friday afternoon, June 23, 2017.  He was riding a motorcycle with some friends at a remote campground near Tillamook, OR and lost control and drove into a 50-foot ravine.  (He was wearing a helmet but apparently it was not fastened around his chin so it fell off before it could do much to help.)  His friend was driving in front of him and didn't know he was gone for some time, then turned around to find him at the bottom of the ravine.  Due to the remoteness of the location, it took about 45 minutes to get an emergency vehicle on site.  His injuries were very severe, including head trauma, a collapsed lung and broken bones.  Josh was flown by Life Flight helicopter to OHSU in Portland.  Mary and I got to the hospital at around 7:00 pm and got to see Josh briefly before he was rushed into emergency surgery.  He was unconscious and in very bad shape, nearly unrecognizable.  The swelling was so bad in his face that after surgery, he was definitely unrecognizable.

Joshua sustained many facial injuries, breaking every bone in his face.  But his most serious injury is his brain.  He was in surgery for about two hours yesterday in which they removed a portion of his skull to alleviate pressure on his brain (craniotomy).  There was a real risk he would not survive the surgery; fortunately, he did.  The swelling in part of his brain went down.  The bad news is that in surgery, the doctors observed damage to Josh’s left frontal lobe.  The doctors do not know how serious or permanent the damage is, but this is the main concern at this point in time.

Every vertebrae from T2-7 was injured, but the spinal team is not planning a remedy for that at this time; they are hoping it will remedy on its own and not result in permanent damage.  He has involuntary movement of his arms and his legs at this time, so that gives us hope for his spine.

Josh is on life support and is being medically sedated.  He will be unconscious for at least another day or so.  After that, no one knows when he will wake up.  It is just a waiting game.  His brain will continue to swell for about four days, and on day five we should know more about the severity of his condition, or even if he will survive.

If the diagnosis on day five indicates he will live, we have been advised that it will be weeks or months before he is released from the hospital, and then he will not be able to live without care for at least a year ... during which time he will be in physical therapy.  We are in for the long haul.  He may recover fully.  He may not.  No one knows.

His day-to-day situations will take time to change, so we don't expect to have much to report on a daily basis.  But we will update this blog as we get information from the medical personnel.

Thank you for loving us, and especially for loving our son, at this time.  Prayers on his behalf are appreciated.