A first-time mother is warning parents never to leave their
baby unattended on top of a bed — even for a few minutes.
Paige Ferguson, of Trumann, Arkansas, was at a friend's
house with her fiancé, Blake Linton, in March when she decided to put her
nearly 6-month-old son, Colton, down for a nap. Like many parents, Ferguson
placed him in the center of the 2-foot tall bed surrounded by pillows, left the
door open a crack and walked to the other room.
Moments later, Ferguson heard a loud thud.
"We heard him hit the floor and Blake dropped
everything and ran in there. I was right behind him," Ferguson, 26, told
Fox News.
Linton scooped up a crying Colton up and examined his head.
He had a small bump, but after a few minutes of gentle rocking, the boy smiled
and seemed fine.
"Naturally, as a first time mom ... I am
paranoid," Ferguson said. "He's still a baby and it's his head. I
wanted to get him evaluated to be sure [he was alright]."
So, the couple rushed the baby to NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital
in Jonesboro, where he got a CT scan. Afterward, Colton vomited, and Ferguson
knew something was terribly wrong.
"The doctors said he had fractured his skull and there
was bleeding on the brain," Ferguson recalled.
He was then airlifted to Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in
Memphis for surgery.
"The fall made him bleed half his blood volume into his
brain and when they did his brain surgery, the loss of that much blood caused
cardiac arrest," Ferguson explained. "The cardiac arrest cut off
oxygen to the brain causing cerebral palsy and cerebral atrophy."
He then had to undergo a second brain surgery, as well as a
procedure to replace his feeding tube. Ferguson recalls Colton getting MRIs,
CTs, X-rays, blood tests and EEGs.
"There was all kinds of treatment," Ferguson said,
adding that Colton was hospitalized for about a month.
The parents said their lives — and Colton's — are forever
changed.
Colton is now in physical, occupational and speech therapy.
Ferguson and Linton are also working with doctors to get the proper medications
to get the now nearly 8-month-old's seizures under control.
"He's definitely not the same baby he was before. I
love him still more and more everyday. But, I still grieve the loss of who he
was and who he would be," Ferguson said.
Though it's difficult, Ferguson said she wants to share
Colton's story so other parents don't have to live through the same heartbreak.
"Never leave babies on a bed ... no matter how safe you
think they are and to not listen to old wives tales about bumps to the head.
Get kids checked out even if they look okay," she warned.
“They didn’t think he would live at all. I walked into the
ICU after his surgery and the doctor came up to me. Her exact words were,
‘Ma’am, I need you to understand that most likely your son is going to die from
this,’ ” she recalls through tears.
Adds Ferguson, “I was in disbelief. I still am. I just kept
praying, and praying. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. It felt like I was in
a horrible dream. Like, this can’t be real.”
Colton remained in the hospital for a month, where he
underwent another brain surgery and more than a dozen blood transfusions. Then,
much to the surprise of the medical staff, Colton was well enough to return
home.
“It was amazing. Colton was a miracle. At all of our
follow-up appointments, the doctors have said, ‘I’m not trying to be mean, but
your child should be dead. People do not live through the injury he had. He is
absolutely a miracle,’ ” Ferguson recalls.
http://people.com/human-interest/colton-paige-ferguson-baby-bed-fall-brain/
A 6-month-old infant in good health previously the day prior to admission fell from a bed to a wood floor, a height of about 3 feet. He cried immediately, but was consolable. For a period of time after that, he was somewhat sleepy and did not look right to mother and so she brought him in to urgent care. There, he was looked over and had perked up considerably in the interim and so was discharged to home with instructions to call 911 if he deteriorated. He was crabby and wanted to be held most of the night, but into the morning he became much more sleepy and refused to try food and would not open his eyes as much. Mother became more concerned and returned to urgent care; however, it was closed and so she called 911 from the parking lot with the assistance of a passerby. EMS (emergency medical service) arrived and placed an intraosseous line and transported him urgently to an emergency department, where a trauma team activation was done. In the trauma bay, he was noted to be arousable and would move all of his extremities with stimulation, but his upper extremities and left lower, he would move spontaneously, right lower only with stimulation and a bit stiffly and slowly. He was noted at the scene to have a dilated left pupil at about 6 mm. He was taken, shortly after arrival, to the CT scanner, where a large epidural with significant midline shift was noted. Following evacuation of the epidural hematoma, he had a head CT, which revealed concern for ischemic injury in the left hemisphere in the distribution of the middle cerebral artery and the posterior cerebral artery. A follow up MRI was obtained on day 10, which again revealed infarcts of the left MCA and PCA and residual subdural hematomas.
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