Page Family Fundraiser

On September 27, 2022 Jacki, Owen and Evelyn were involved in a terrible car accident.

Jacki took the kids to the park like she might on any other day. She was texting me pictures while they were there. Owen had made a few friends, was holding a little girl’s hand who had fallen down, and was running around like a crazy person on the jungle gym. Evelyn was walking around, stumbling, picking herself up and giggling each time.

I was with my students at recess. Jacki sent me a text saying, “the worst part about leaving the park is actually leaving the park”. I gave it the ole heart emoji, put my phone in my pocket and was getting ready to line my kids back up to bring them back to the classroom. I pull my phone out again, the service at our school is terrible so I often have missed calls and texts that don’t get to my phone right away. I had 4 missed calls from an unknown number. I figured it was a spam call, but then got a text from the same number asking me to call back and that your wife and children were involved in a car accident.

I called the number and the man on the other end told me that my kids and wife were already in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I bolted out of recess, let the admin know I had to leave and I was on my way to Medical City Plano where Jacki was being taken. On the way there I get a call from a social worker at Children’s Dallas. She told me my kids were being transported there. I call my dad, tell him to go be with Jacki because she would want me to be there with Owen and Evelyn.

I make it to the hospital and they take me to a room in critical care. I got to see Evelyn, she was crying and very bruised up. They did a bunch of scans and were waiting to get them back but were confident there was not anything major.

Then they take me to see Owen, he was in a different wing of the hospital in the ICU. In my head I was thinking if Evelyn is as good as she is, surely Owen will be fine too. I felt weak in the knees as soon as I entered his room. There were about 40 doctors from all of the different units gathered around his room. I see him and he is unconscious, tubes and IVs everywhere, neck brace. I did not know what to think and it was all I could do to try and keep calm. Inside I was panicking.

I get a bunch of generic information about what is going on. He has a spine, neck and brain injury. Then the police who were at the scene show up. They ask me a bunch of questions about what I knew, I told them nothing. The officer tells me that Jacki was in a turn lane, stopped and that a man had a “medical incident” and fell asleep at the wheel. The point of impact was where Owen was sitting. He was going an estimated 70MPH.

I eventually get to talk to the Neurosurgeon who tells me that surgery must be done. Dr. Braga, who come to find out would become my hero, sits me down in a consultation room. After reviewing the scans, essentially Owen’s skull was completely detached from his spine, only being held together by his skin. There was also a break at the C3-C4 section of his spine. He then explained the procedure he intended to attempt. They were going to reattach and anchor his skull back to his spine by screwing through C1-C2 vertebrae, then complete the spinal fusion by removing a rib and using it to fill in the gap between his C3-C4 vertebrae. He has to do all of this while operating around the brain stem not causing any further damage. He went through all of the complications that could arise with the surgery and that it would take roughly 8 hours. At that point I was literally just praying and begging to God that complications would be the case if that meant that my son would live. The surgery was scheduled for the next day.

I still have no idea what is going on with Jacki. I call my dad to check on her and he had not been able to speak with her yet.

Jacki’s sisters, dad and stepmom all come into town immediately to be with her. She ends up having to have serious spinal surgery that night. Around midnight, I get a call from her surgeon post-surgery. He tells me, “The surgery was successful, but she will not walk again”. My initial reaction was how thankful I am that she is alive. She is under heavy sedation still and I made the choice to not tell her about Owen and Evelyn and that the kids are fine and being taken care of.

The night of Owen’s surgery was the longest night of my life. He had been intubated and under a heavy sedation for a day and a half at this point. They tell me they want to put him under a temporary paralysis until surgery because they were so worried about him moving at all and injuring his brain stem. They were visibly worried about even moving him from the ICU to the operating room. I sang and read to him for most of the morning before surgery. I also read him his favorite book, “Hug Machine” as they rolled him out of the room. I do Owen’s bedtime every night and always make sure the last thing we say to each other is “Love you Owen and Love you Dada”. I got to give him one last “Love you Owen” before he went into surgery.

They call and give you generic updates during the surgery. After 10 hours I began to get worried. Finally, Dr. Braga comes to talk to us. The best way I can describe this man is that he is selfless, steady and accepts no credit for a job well done. He tells us that if it was his son, the surgery could not have gone any better. Not really understanding the big picture at the time. It turns out he literally pulled off a miracle surgery, I have never been given any percentages or stats, but it is a legitimate miracle that the surgery went as well as it did.

Now what does that mean? It means that we can start the road to recovery. We do not know what recovery will look like for Owen, he is doing better each day but we will not know in what capacity he will be able to walk for at least a year. He will have therapy 4 days a week to work on his gross and fine motor skills. It is very uplifting for me to share his progress during therapy because it is easy to share the happy news. The unknown is daunting. With the hardware he has, combined with his brain and spinal cord injury he will lose 50% of his neck movement and there will likely be further complications down the road both physically and mentally.

It has been hard for me to put all of the pieces of this puzzle together with my wife being at a different treatment facility working on her rehab. Jacki is not going to walk again and is paralyzed from the chest down. We are all so thankful that she will have use of her arms. My wife is the best mother to our kids. I do not know what I would do without her. All she wants is to be a mom again, bake with the kids, take them to the park, play with them, take care of them. That is what is driving her to work as hard as she is. She knows that she will get back to being a mom but in a different capacity. I am happy that our kids are young enough that seeing mom in a wheelchair will be a normal thing to them as they grow up. Life is going to be good once we are all back together.

We need significant long term financial help. Being a teacher and Jacki an RT, we make enough to pay the bills, but not these bills. I am going to be the primary care giver to Jacki who will be wheelchair bound, two-year-old Owen who will not be able to be safely mobile for an extended period of time. Also to our 1 year old daughter Evelyn who somehow escaped this horrific accident unscathed. The driver who hit my family did not have insurance. I will not be able to return to work for quite a while and while Jacki wants so badly to get back to being an RT and helping patients at the hospital, that is very far down the road.

We have to make serious modifications to our home to make it ADA accessible. All doorways have to be widened, ramps installed, bathroom completely redone, kitchen completely redone, etc. We will need to get a vehicle that will be able to accommodate Jacki and Owen. We will be able to file for disability but government assistance is not going to come to covering what our needs will be.

To those who have helped financially, with your time, or just with your thoughts and prayers, we are beyond thankful for you. Please donate and share if you can.

-Mitchell