2010 was going to be a great year. January 3rd Andrew turned 30, I was finally completing my student teaching and was going to graduate in May and our two beautiful children were happy and healthy. In March Miles had his 1st Birthday, and then there was Easter and Mother's Day. I look at the pictures from Mother's Day and reminisce about how this were at that very moment. The innocent happy faces of my children, Miles riding on top of his daddy's shoulders, Avery lounging in Grandma's chair.
I also strangely remember that morning, Tuesday May 11 that is. The morning was kind of cloudy and only cold enough to have on a light sweater. My mom had driven from Fort Collins to Denver to watch the kids for the day. Andrew and I left the house together, said "have a good day" and got in our cars, Andrew went to work and I went to the elementary school where I was student teaching. I finished teaching my science lesson after math. Then it was lunch I had checked my phone several time while I was on lunch then put it away. I felt the need to look at my phone one more time 5 minutes before the kids were to come back from lunch and I had a message.
I checked voice mail and it was a call from a Commerce City police officer telling me to call him back. My first thought was something happened with my mom and or the kids. Our home was not in Commerce City but it was close enough. When I returned the call the officer told me Andrew had been in an accident. He proceeded to tell me that they took him to Denver Health for x-rays and I should go there. I excused myself at school and headed to the hospital.
On my way to the hospital my phone rings, stupidly I answer it. It was Denver Health. The woman on the phone tells me where to go and says the Andrew has a broken leg. I get to the ER and they have a hospital councilor meet me and she took me to a room. The councilor then tells me BOTH of his legs are broken and he might need surgery to fix one or both. She asked me if I had any questions and I said "Yeah, how do I get him home, we live in a third story walk up. If both legs are broken how do I get him upstairs?" Her reply was "There will be people to work that out with you." At that point I should have known that she was withholding information.
I had called his parents and my parents to let them know what was going on. His parents and his brother joined me in the waiting room at Denver Health. They had taken him into surgery. A person from surgery came to tell us they had to medically place Andrew into a coma because his injuries were so bad. They were not able to do all the surgeries they needed to and his injuries were too extensive to keep him awake. This person was shocked that we did not know the list of injuries yet.
Later that night we learned: Two broken femurs, the left was broken in two places one of those being right near the ball of the femur at the hip, 7 broken ribs, fractured nose and a fracture at the elbow. Also he had bruising of the lungs and later that night his lungs had collapsed. The medical staff had to flip him on his stomach to help save his life but in the process the flip itself could have killed him. They also had to later flip him back over on his back and that could have killed him too. He looked so different laying there on the hospital bed, all bloated with fluid and banged up. His lungs were so bad the hospital had to focus on his lungs healing before they could continue the surgeries on his legs. This meant he was still going to be in a medial coma, and tubes were now draining fluid from his lungs. All we could do was wait.
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