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After a four-month hospitalization and year and a half of hard work, the new Jeffrey is a lot like the old Jeffery. Once again he is playing sports and thinking about ways to raise money for charity, but he no longer rides the four-wheeler. That has been sold.
“There was a big ditch in the field behind the back yard,” he said. “I had crossed it before. This time I hit the other side and got thrown off and the four-wheeler hit me.” The impact threw Jeffrey over the handlebars onto the ground. A heavy bar on the back of the flipping machine landed on his stomach. The impact broke both of his arms, perforated his intestines, punctured a lung, shattered a kidney and nearly cut his liver in half. Fortunately he was wearing a good helmet. The visor broke off when Jeffrey hit the ground, but the helmet prevented a head injury. Jeffrey’s grandparents called an ambulance and he was “They started doing x-rays right away, and called St. Louis pretty quick,” said Janice Milner, Jeffrey’s grandmother. “I knew right then it was serious.” James Gerard, M.D., a member of Glennon’s emergency medicine staff, came on the helicopter and assisted the local hospital’s ER staff in stabilizing Jeffrey for the trip. “It was several hours before they could even transport him,” Mrs. Milner said. “It was probably midnight when they left for Cardinal Glennon. They told us it didn’t look good. “We couldn’t go on the helicopter with him, of course. We had a two-hour drive to St. Louis. You don’t know how long that drive is, not knowing what is going to be waiting when you get there.” When Jeffrey reached Glennon’s emergency room, his resuscitation team required the services of the general surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery and radiology staffs as well as the emergency medicine department. “He was one of the more difficult traumas we have had in a while because he had a multitude of injuries,” said Diana Fendya, M.S.N., Glennon’s trauma nurse coordinator. “He had a real bad liver laceration and we also were suspecting a bowel injury.” It was a long time before Jeffrey’s family knew whether he would survive, Mrs. Milner said. He needed surgery to repair his internal injuries, but his doctors feared that his condition was too fragile to handle the stress of an operation. Jeffrey weighed 57 pounds before the accident. In the early days of his hospitalization he reached almost 100 pounds.
Doctors were reluctant to operate on his internal injuries for fear that his liver would bleed even more if they released the pressure being created within his abdomen by the accumulation of blood and fluids, Fendya said. Three days after the accident, surgeons finally had to “Jeffrey was in intensive care for a month and a half. He was intubated for a month. When they moved him out of intensive care, he still had seven different tubes and nine monitors on him,” Mrs. Milner said. “The nurses said they’d never had anybody with all that.” Jeffrey’s many injuries led to infections which further complicated
his recovery. “It seemed like it was one thing after another,” his
grandmother said. “It was quite a while before his doctors really
acted like there was much to hang on to. Things never did look real
bright until probably the “He had a prolonged recovery due to the complications he faced,” Fendya said. The pressure within his abdomen made it difficult for him to breathe, so he needed assistance from the ventilator. His bowel injuries and broken arms prevented him from eating, so he required tube feedings. The summer before Jeffrey was injured, he got the idea to undertake a
fund-raising program for charities. Through a series of raffles and
games at city and county fairs, he raised $800 and split the money
between a southeastern Illinois shelter for abused children and the
local police department, “Since he was real little, he was always compassionate and caring,” his grandmother said. Jeffrey doesn’t remember much about the first weeks of his stay at Cardinal Glennon. “I missed the worst part,” he said. “I slept through it.” He was becoming more aware of his surroundings around Christmas, when people were delivering gifts to patients who were spending the holidays in the hospital. One visitor gave him a big yellow dump truck that he still keeps in his room in its original box.
“All of the things he went through, as far as kids are concerned, can reduce their morale and perhaps the hope that they are going to get well again,” Fendya said. “David Ish from child life played an extremely important role in helping Jeffrey recoup and focus in on trying to get well.” Ish, a child life specialist, spent time with Jeffrey each day. “I provided different activities for him and just hung out with him. Some of it was diversion, some of it was to help him get through the long hospitalization,” Ish said. “Our role is to try to normalize the environment for our patients as much as we can. We do a lot of medical play things to help them work through any fears they may have of the machines or shots or other things used in their treatments. “He was a trouper throughout his stay. I’m sure he got tired of the whole situation but he didn’t do a lot of complaining.” Jeffrey underwent a second operation two months into his stay so his surgeon could painstakingly examine his intestines to repair the holes caused by the accident. On January 16, 1998, more than four months after he arrived at Glennon, he went home. He was able to start eating and drinking just a short time before he was discharged, and he had been walking for just a week. Nonetheless, he insisted on walking from the car to his home when he got back to Johnsonville, where the local newspaper published a photograph of his wobbly steps. Jeffrey was unable to finish the fourth grade. With the help of a tutor and a few weeks of summer school, he still was able to move on to the fifth grade with his classmates. He tried playing baseball that first summer, but leg cramps forced him to miss the season while he continued receiving physical therapy to rebuild his strength. That summer and the next, he again conducted raffles and games around Johnsonville to raise money for charity. He used the money to buy televisions, video games and toys that he took back to children at Cardinal Glennon around Christmas, just as he had promised.
He continues to receive speech therapy to rebuild his voice from the injuries it suffered during the months he was intubated and breathing on a ventilator. He was scheduled to make a visit to Glennon this summer for the checkup that could be the last he will need. “Dr. Gerard said he was one of their greatest success stories. The doctors say there isn’t any problem they can foresee him facing,” Mrs. Milner said. “Other people don’t see it, but we can still see that his endurance and strength aren’t there yet. It’s getting almost normal.” “I feel good,” Jeffrey said. “Some people say my voice is
different, but that’s it.” “The staff gave him a party on the day we left. There were a lot of
tears,” Mrs. Milner said. “We were glad to go, but we really had
gotten close to some of the people. It’s kind of a bond — I know the
hospital is always going to keep a Jeffrey will long be remembered by many members of the Glennon staff. “He was one of these remarkable kids,” Fendya said. “He had a great disposition. I think he really worked hard with the nurses and docs. He was part of the team. I had a great deal of respect for him as a little person. He went through an awful lot of things that most adults never have had to go through, and through it all he was a true champ.” His family thought the Glennon staff was championship-caliber, too. “When you’re so stressed out, going through something like we were going through, a lot of times it is easy to pick up on all the little things you don’t like,” Mrs. Milner said. “It wasn’t like that. We were so impressed with everybody there. Everybody there is so caring — they are all just super people. “The love for kids is in the air. We were blessed time and time again.”
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he old Jeffrey Milner was a quiet, thoughtful, compassionate
nine-year-old who liked playing sports and riding his four-wheeled all-terrain-vehicle across the farm fields
of southeastern Illinois.
It was about 5:30 p.m. on October 2, 1997. Jeffrey was riding his ATV
on his grandparents’ farm in Johnsonville, Ill.
“He had a lot of bleeding, and they had to give him so many fluids
to keep his blood pressure up. They didn’t even set his arms because
they weren’t feeling real good about taking him into surgery,” his
grandmother said.
“He really wasn’t himself, but he still appreciated it,” Mrs.
Milner said. “One night after a group came through, he said, ‘This
is something we ought to do next Christmas — come back and bring stuff
for the kids.’ I went out in the hall and bawled. I told the nurse
that this was the first time I really knew the old Jeffrey was back.”
This year he was able to play sports at school again. He lettered in
baseball, basketball and track, in which his main event was the triple
jump. Now a sturdy 100 pounds, he’ll play little league baseball this
summer and go fishing when he gets the chance.