Monday, August 3, 2009 6:18 AM

Monday, August 3, 2009 6:18 AM, EDT

On Saturday, July 31 at about 9:00 am, Gary and I received the phone call no parent or family, or friend ever want to receive. Mary Washington Hospital called Gary's cell phone to tell him that Kyle had been in a car accident. They asked about some medical history and asked how far away from the hospital we lived. They said Kyle's okay, but you need to come down to the hospital.

Wh

en we arrived, we were escorted into a room off the Emergency Room entrance. About 15 minutes later, the Emergency Room Attending Physician came in and proceeded to tell us that Kyle had been in a very serious car accident.

Kyle had broken his neck at the C7 area and had possibly injured his spinal cord. He had no feeling in his legs and hands and had a broken arm and serious head lacerations. He has a very serious bruised left lung that is capable of giving him some serious pulmonary issues as well.

At this point, Gary and I were completely confused and not prepared to hear any of this. The state trooper was next to enter the room to give us the preliminary details of the accident.

Kyle had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel on Route 17 near Bealeton. His car hit a guard rail and then went into the median ditch which made the car start to flip. They believe the car flipped about 4-5 times. A good sammaritan drove up just after it happened and called 911. The EMT's were there very fast and it took about 30 minutes to get him out of the car. He was at the hospital by 8:40 and treatment started.

Kyle was rushed into surgery to have his spine realigned as the impact of the car rolling compressed his spine. The surgery did determine that his spine is crushed causing paralysis from the chest down. His arm is not broken, but he has a very bad laceration that went down to the bone and the muscle in his forearm very badly torn and damaged.

During the surgery, a metal plate was placed in his neck to keep his spine aligned and to decompress the spine. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can do about his spinal cord. Initially we had been told that the spinal cord was severed, which is the worst news anyone can have. But the surgery did show it was crushed. And while this does not immediately change his prognosis of being able to walk, it does allow the hope that someday, a treatment will be developed for spinal cord injury patients to be able to fully function again.

Today, we Kyle is under sedation and intubated on a ventalator to help him breathe. The injury did not affect his breathing capability, thank goodness, but we are meeting with this trauma team this morning to determine if another surgery should be performed or if we proceed with a care plan to address his other physical issues.

We thank ALL our family and friends and ask that you keep Kyle in your prayers and thoughts. Today will be a very difficult day if we determine to take him off the ventilator and wake him up. He doesn't know the extent of his injuries and about his paralysis and he'll need to be told. He has a great team of Doctors and nurses in the ICU at Mary Washington and we are struggling with how to tell him and help him understand that while he might not be able to walk today, we hope in the future that he will!

Kyle will be leaving Mary Washington at some point and going to a Spinal Cord Rehabiliation Hospital somewhere in the US. We will being working with his medical team to determine which hospital is the best for him and will of course keep everyone in the loop.

We will update everyone today after we determine the next step.