Richards Battle
Donation protected
This is Richard. He is my 1st born and was always there to help me when things were tough. We have done everything together. Days out, Weekends away and have had some great laughs. I taught him how to walk, talk and when he got older i taught him to fish, ride a motorbike and even pick up chicks.
He always followed what his old man said. Never cheeky. Never stepped out of line. and always had a please and thankyou ready for those who needed it.
On the night of his 17th birthday he was out celebrating with his friends. Usual thing for any young lad to be at. out having a game of pool with his mates and a sneaky beer.
On the way home Richard received a call to go with his friend to pick up his girlfriend and a few others in Castlewellan.
Without a second thought Richard went along to make sure the girls got back home safely.
On the way back at approximately 2am, the driver of the car lost control in icy conditions and skidded into a wall between Kilcoo and Hilltown.
The driver of the vehicle unfortunately lost his life that night. The 2 lovely Girls were left with terrible injuries and spent quite a lot of time in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast after undergoing several surgeries to get them back to health.
Richard was a front seat passenger and he followed my instructions that if he ever got into a car he put on his seat belt. The car was impacted on the drivers side and this meant that Richard was flung sideways and broke almost every bone down his torso and face on the right hand side of his body.
I received the call to get to the hospital as richard had been involved in a accident and its a good job there were no police on the A1 as I flew as quick as i could to get there.
When i arrived i was ushered into a side room where hospital staff explained that yes there was an accident. Unfortunately a young male has passed away at the scene and we have a young male critically ill in our emergency department. Our highly trained staff are currently trying to stabilise him but he is in such a bad state.
So at this point i ask "is my son in the emergency room or was he the young male at the road side?"
We don't know was the answer.
And it was quite a few hours before we could get to see Richard and formally identify him. The Hospital staff came out with a few items that were in Richards pockets and at this point we could tell that indeed it was Richard in the hospital.
Another few hours passed and when the what can only be described as miracle workers in the Royal Victoria Hospital R.I.C.U. managed to get Richard stable enough for me and his mum to see him. He was hooked up to a life support machine which was breathing for him. He was placed in an induced coma and given a cocktail of pain medication, blood pressure medication and had to undergo emergency surgery to have a sensor drilled into his skull to monitor the pressure on his brain as it had swelled. A cooling blanket which was freezing to the touch was keeping him as cold as possible to relieve the swelling on his brain and try to reduce the damage already caused and limit the severity of his brain injury.
After a period of 14 days Richard had his breathing tubes removed and a tracheotomy operation to insert the oxygen and breathing apparatus tubes at the base of his throat. This would be easier for him to breathe and would also make it easier for the doctors to intervene should he get into difficulties.
Richard was kept in this state for over a week until his doctors suggested that he could be gradually brought round. his medication was reduced little by little. a balancing act to keep his temperature, blood pressure and oxygen levels within the safe limits. day 1 of the medication reduction and he began to shiver. This raised his body temperature and so began the start of a 2 steps forward 1 step back approach to keep Richard safe.
By the time we got Richard brought round is a blur but i think it was 3 weeks after the accident a lovely Ballymena nurse with the broadest Ballymena accent roared into richards ear "Richard, Richard. Give us a thumbs up Richard." Richard with his eyes still closed and in a quite deliberate manner given that he was still on quite a bit of pain medication managed to move his thumb into an erect digit to let us know he was ok.
The commands kept coming from Ballymena's finest front line worker when she again asked in her broad tone. "Richard. Richard. Stick your tongue out Richard." again Richard obliged and managed to press his tongue forward. not out the whole way but enough to let us know he was there and he understood what we were asking him to do.
Over the next few days Richard came on leaps and bounds. It quickly became apparent that Richard had very limited mobility down his left side as he had damaged his brain on the right hand side and although he had some control over his right side he lacked the dexterity to hold an object such as a telly remote or a phone. He could grip anything you put in his hand and would let you know he was OK or that he was uncomfortable or in pain by gripping tightly onto mum and dads hand.
Every day Richard was doing something new and kept proving the doctors wrong. They were all stunned with how he was doing from where he was a few weeks ago. waving at the nurses, rolling his eyes when I would come out with a DAD joke. He was able to nod yes and no to answer simple questions like are you in pain, are you uncomfortable. On one occasion he was scratching his head against the pillow i asked was his head itchy? do you want daddy to scratch it? The nod came yes. I have never seen anyone so happy to get a simple thing as a scratch.
Then on a Friday morning early around 4 am or 5 am, Richards mum rang to say that the hospital had phoned her and that Richard was becoming more and more unresponsive. She was by this stage already on the road down to the hospital. She got there to be told that Richard had a suspected bleed on the brain and they were putting a team together to get Richard to theater straight away. His Mum rang to say that they couldn't wait he had to go now. Get him to theater i will be there soon and i will see him when he comes out.
Richard was back on the ward after surgery back to square 1. hooked up to tubes and unresponsive.
Richard has remained in this vegetative state since late Novemberand requires round the clock care. He now resides in Musgrave Hospital where due to the current COVID19 situation myself or his mum cannot get down to see him. His nurses ring us via whatsapp 2 or 3 times a week and give us daily updates on how he is doing.
This Go Fund Me will allow Richards mum to adapt her house to one day bring Richard back home where he belongs.
It will be done in stages. Eventually it is hoped Richard will have his own purpose built man cave with wheelchair access and all the equipment needed for his care.
A lot of building work needs to be carried out and a lot of costs are involved with looking after him and i believe the best place for him is back home.
We miss him so much as do his brothers and sister and we hope you can help in any way to make it possible.
Kindest regards
Brian and Yvonne
He always followed what his old man said. Never cheeky. Never stepped out of line. and always had a please and thankyou ready for those who needed it.
On the night of his 17th birthday he was out celebrating with his friends. Usual thing for any young lad to be at. out having a game of pool with his mates and a sneaky beer.
On the way home Richard received a call to go with his friend to pick up his girlfriend and a few others in Castlewellan.
Without a second thought Richard went along to make sure the girls got back home safely.
On the way back at approximately 2am, the driver of the car lost control in icy conditions and skidded into a wall between Kilcoo and Hilltown.
The driver of the vehicle unfortunately lost his life that night. The 2 lovely Girls were left with terrible injuries and spent quite a lot of time in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast after undergoing several surgeries to get them back to health.
Richard was a front seat passenger and he followed my instructions that if he ever got into a car he put on his seat belt. The car was impacted on the drivers side and this meant that Richard was flung sideways and broke almost every bone down his torso and face on the right hand side of his body.
I received the call to get to the hospital as richard had been involved in a accident and its a good job there were no police on the A1 as I flew as quick as i could to get there.
When i arrived i was ushered into a side room where hospital staff explained that yes there was an accident. Unfortunately a young male has passed away at the scene and we have a young male critically ill in our emergency department. Our highly trained staff are currently trying to stabilise him but he is in such a bad state.
So at this point i ask "is my son in the emergency room or was he the young male at the road side?"
We don't know was the answer.
And it was quite a few hours before we could get to see Richard and formally identify him. The Hospital staff came out with a few items that were in Richards pockets and at this point we could tell that indeed it was Richard in the hospital.
Another few hours passed and when the what can only be described as miracle workers in the Royal Victoria Hospital R.I.C.U. managed to get Richard stable enough for me and his mum to see him. He was hooked up to a life support machine which was breathing for him. He was placed in an induced coma and given a cocktail of pain medication, blood pressure medication and had to undergo emergency surgery to have a sensor drilled into his skull to monitor the pressure on his brain as it had swelled. A cooling blanket which was freezing to the touch was keeping him as cold as possible to relieve the swelling on his brain and try to reduce the damage already caused and limit the severity of his brain injury.
After a period of 14 days Richard had his breathing tubes removed and a tracheotomy operation to insert the oxygen and breathing apparatus tubes at the base of his throat. This would be easier for him to breathe and would also make it easier for the doctors to intervene should he get into difficulties.
Richard was kept in this state for over a week until his doctors suggested that he could be gradually brought round. his medication was reduced little by little. a balancing act to keep his temperature, blood pressure and oxygen levels within the safe limits. day 1 of the medication reduction and he began to shiver. This raised his body temperature and so began the start of a 2 steps forward 1 step back approach to keep Richard safe.
By the time we got Richard brought round is a blur but i think it was 3 weeks after the accident a lovely Ballymena nurse with the broadest Ballymena accent roared into richards ear "Richard, Richard. Give us a thumbs up Richard." Richard with his eyes still closed and in a quite deliberate manner given that he was still on quite a bit of pain medication managed to move his thumb into an erect digit to let us know he was ok.
The commands kept coming from Ballymena's finest front line worker when she again asked in her broad tone. "Richard. Richard. Stick your tongue out Richard." again Richard obliged and managed to press his tongue forward. not out the whole way but enough to let us know he was there and he understood what we were asking him to do.
Over the next few days Richard came on leaps and bounds. It quickly became apparent that Richard had very limited mobility down his left side as he had damaged his brain on the right hand side and although he had some control over his right side he lacked the dexterity to hold an object such as a telly remote or a phone. He could grip anything you put in his hand and would let you know he was OK or that he was uncomfortable or in pain by gripping tightly onto mum and dads hand.
Every day Richard was doing something new and kept proving the doctors wrong. They were all stunned with how he was doing from where he was a few weeks ago. waving at the nurses, rolling his eyes when I would come out with a DAD joke. He was able to nod yes and no to answer simple questions like are you in pain, are you uncomfortable. On one occasion he was scratching his head against the pillow i asked was his head itchy? do you want daddy to scratch it? The nod came yes. I have never seen anyone so happy to get a simple thing as a scratch.
Then on a Friday morning early around 4 am or 5 am, Richards mum rang to say that the hospital had phoned her and that Richard was becoming more and more unresponsive. She was by this stage already on the road down to the hospital. She got there to be told that Richard had a suspected bleed on the brain and they were putting a team together to get Richard to theater straight away. His Mum rang to say that they couldn't wait he had to go now. Get him to theater i will be there soon and i will see him when he comes out.
Richard was back on the ward after surgery back to square 1. hooked up to tubes and unresponsive.
Richard has remained in this vegetative state since late Novemberand requires round the clock care. He now resides in Musgrave Hospital where due to the current COVID19 situation myself or his mum cannot get down to see him. His nurses ring us via whatsapp 2 or 3 times a week and give us daily updates on how he is doing.
This Go Fund Me will allow Richards mum to adapt her house to one day bring Richard back home where he belongs.
It will be done in stages. Eventually it is hoped Richard will have his own purpose built man cave with wheelchair access and all the equipment needed for his care.
A lot of building work needs to be carried out and a lot of costs are involved with looking after him and i believe the best place for him is back home.
We miss him so much as do his brothers and sister and we hope you can help in any way to make it possible.
Kindest regards
Brian and Yvonne
Organizer
Brian Weir
Organizer
