Our Son left at 7:30am Monday, January 27, 2003. My Husband stayed home from school that day. I didn't go to my Therapy that morning, took some pain meds for my wrist and went back to bed. Karl got to the cross walk up the street by 7:41am. He preceded into the crosswalk where a van skidded into him. It was determined there was 58ft of skid mark 50ft when the van hit our son. Karl is 13yrs old, and already suffers from mental problems before the accident. He is ADHD and bipolar d/o. The accident happened at 7:42am and the Police showed up by 7:46am and an ambulance by 7:49am. When our son was transported to Childrens best. Children's medical center of Dallas ER got Karl by 8:15am. Where the trauma team meet the ambulance. Now in the mean time we are asleep in our bed with no clue. Our computer was online we were downloading figured it would be done time we get back up. Our son's emergency contact was called that morning by the police and said he was at Children's with a bump on his head. She drove to my husband's school and my therapy with no luck finding us. She came to the house and pounded on the window of our room and woke my husband up. He got up and opened the front door to hear "Karl has been hit by a van, he is in Children's get Kat." I remember hearing "Kat, get up Karl was hit by a van." I think that is the quickest I ever got dress and got the phone and called Children's ER to tell them we were on the way. By now it's 10:00am I was told by ER that something was wrong with his stomach I know by know watching the MD shows that was not good news. We must have hit every red light going down there. I walked into ER and said "You have our son Karl Broker in back please take us to him." I felt like the worse mother in the world at that point why didn't I just go to therapy that morning. I would have been with him. But nothing can erase that image from my mind of walking into that trauma room with all those tubes and iv's and wires attached to our boy. There was a cooler on the end of his bed and the nurse said it is blood in case he needs it. He has a severe concussion and a spleen injury which is what we are most worried about right now. If his spleen stops bleeding internal on it's own we won't do surgery he is waking up on and off when we wake him which is good news. The collar on his neck is to hold it still till we are sure nothing is wrong with his neck. Then the doctor came in and explained what was going on and Karl would be transported up to ICU soon to keep a close eye on him for the next 48hrs. I am only 5ft so all I could do was kiss my son's hand I couldn't reach him to kiss his check so I made daddy kiss him twice once for me. We so much wanted to pick him up and hold him and couldn't move him. I stood there holding his hand and telling him he would be okay. Mommy and Daddy were there, I walked out of the room to go call my parents and my birth mother and his aunt Traci and Jeff's family. I sat down outside to have a smoke and said God you can take me just not my boy Please just not my son. I know we have rough times with him but he is still my son. I would trade places with him if I could right now. About 12pm Karl was moved to ICU and while they were setting him up in ICU Jeff and I were discussing how do we tell Jesse our 11yr old what had happen. Our friends that were with us that day we call her Mom and the kids call her grandma as well as Dad and grandpa and uncle Mike .Mom and Mike were there and never left our side, she even made me and Jeff go eat. Karl's blood count stayed up so I told Jeff when we got back upstairs I would go get Jesse so I could pack for the hospital. I walked into Jesse's classroom at 2:45pm right before school's out and told the teacher I needed Jesse right now. His brother is in ICU and I need to get going teacher told Jesse to pack it up and move. He did just that what's going on Mom, well Jesse Karl was hit by a van this morning. And your just now coming to get me. Oh boy I tell you I already felt bad and he made it worse. I went to the house and packed a few things and some snacks. Then we were back off to the ICU to go see Karl. Jesse was not prepared to see his brother like this Jesse walked in that room and turned around into Daddy's arms and cried. Which Karl never heard he was on so much morphine and stuff and with the concussion he didn't know. Those first 24hrs were the worst I couldn't sleep Karl so much at whimper and I was up then scared to go back to sleep.
He was moved out of ICU the next morning the bleeding looked like it had stopped.
He was released that Friday from the hospital. But our major problems didn't start till 2wks from the accident when our son started back to school. When we would soon learn our son had brain injury and no one could give us answers why they didn't tell us that this could happen earlier. We are waiting on the test which will be March 20th.
Email Jeff and Kat
