On June 28,2000 Mark was working at a warehouse loading freight. A 3000 pound fishing net came off the forklift and hit Mark and landed on him. He was revived at the scene after anywhere from 6-20 minutes.He was rushed to a local trauma center. They did not give us much hope. He had an anoxic brain injury, a broken back, and punctured lungs. He was in a coma. We authorized surgery a week later to fuse the bones in his spine. They said he would probably not walk again. He started moving his legs around but they were still not convinced. They discharged him from ICU and then from the hospital after three weeks.

Mark was transferred to a nursing home. One week later he developed blood clots in his legs and lungs. He was sent back to ICU. Two weeks later he was sent to a hospital to ween him off his trach. Two weeks from that he was again transferred (after much repeated begging)to a subacute rehab facility. He was there for six weeks.

Mark has been transferred to Good Sam rehab hospital which is an acute rehab facility. He remains there for another six weeks. It is far from our home and it is hard for us to get there often (two or three times a week).Mark does not make alot of progress there.

January 12th 2001
Mark is now in an assisted living facility closer to our homes. He is still receiving physical therapy twice a week and OT therpy also. His Dr. from Good Sam does not want to transfer him to another hospital at UW. They are more knowledgeable and have more resources to deal with TBI. We have fired him. He has an appointment at UW for March.

Mark can walk only with supervision and a walker or help from people. He is getting better at toileting. His attention span is not to long and he has no short term memory. He does not know what year it is or where he is . His long term memory is ok with anything two or three years ago or longer. He gets mixed up when you ask him his age.

He still has his sense of humor and his love of cars and family. It has been seven months now and is hard to see all the changes he has gone through. I hope some of his short term memory comes back and he can come and live with a family member.If anyone has any other stories relating to anoxic brain injurys and what they are going through I would love for them to share them with us.

Email Mark's Sister