Just wanted to get the facts out to everyone on how my dad ended up in Reno in a coma….
My Dad & I were camping near Downieville, CA on a trip we have been going on every summer for the last 10 years known as Kids and Dads. This year, there were 11 of us on the trip and we set out from Bassets, CA around 11:00 AM Thursday July 27. It takes about 1-1/2 hour in a 4x4 vehicle, followed by a 30-minute hike down a steep canyon to get to the campsite.
To help carry the large items down the canyon, my Dad purchased an ATV the week prior to the trip. This would lead to be a timely purchase. After making several trips down the canyon from the trucks, we set up camp, had dinner and got ready for our nightly sauna. After the sauna, we all met around the “campfire” (halogen light these days) for 2-3 hours of music, singing and stories. As we were wrapping up for the night, my dad walked to the edge of the river near camp to relieve himself. As he was standing there he shifted his weight to his left leg, which unfortunately he had sprained a week prior. His leg buckled underneath him and he fell forward head first, landing 1-2 feet away from the river embankment. As far as we can tell he fell 6-8 feet hitting his head on the left side on one of the rocks below.
I was sitting at the “fire” and witnessed the accident. I immediately went down the embankment to see if my dad was ok. When I got there he was unconscious and was bleeding from a gash on the left side of his head. He regained consciousness after 1-2 minutes, but was very confused about where he was and what had happened. Dave Whitmire and myself lifted my dad up from the embankment and placed him in a chair near his tent. Luckily we had a doctor with us, Lloyd Smith, who applied a bandage to his wound. At this time my dad was still conscious but was trying to remove the bandage due to the pain he was experiencing. He lost conscious about 15 minutes after we got him up and into the chair.
At this time, we knew his wounds were serious and sent Bob and Brendan Johnson to activate the Emergency Medical System (EMS). Unfortunately, where we were camping we were out of cell range and the Johnson’s had to hike 25 minutes and then drive 1 hour to activate the EMS system. During this time, Lloyd, myself, Dave Whitmire, Jim Carlson and Jim Douglas were with my dad trying to get him to wake up and monitoring his vital signs. We covered him with a sleeping bag and rubbed him to keep him warm and stimulated. Due to the severity of his injury, the lack of resources available to us at our camp site and the worry of losing his airway we did not feel it was safe or even feasible to move him until the EMS personnel arrived.
The injury happened around 11:00 PM and the EMS personnel arrived around 3:30 AM. I don't think I have ever been so happy to see lights coming down a hiking trail in the middle of the night. The first 2 EMS personnel to arrive were 2 volunteer paramedics who I can not thank enough or praise enough for their outstanding handling of this difficult situation. They got oxygen started on my dad and with the help of Lloyd got IV fluids running. It was at this point that 2 firefighters from Sierra City arrived with a backboard.
We loaded my dad onto the backboard and used the ATV to drive him to the trucks. To get him up the hill on the ATV we needed 3 people on each side of the board to stabilize it. I drove and the 2 firefighters stabilized the front rack to prevent the 4-wheeler from flipping over while we were going up the trail. As we set out, the pace was very slow and the process of inching our way up the rocky steep hill was grueling for everyone involved. We had to stop frequently to assess my dads vitals and for everyone to catch their breath. After a long hour we were at the cars.
Once at the cars the paramedics intubated my dad’s airway to ensure it remained open. We then loaded my dad into the back of his suburban with the 2 paramedics and drove 30 minutes to a nearby meadow where the helicopter was waiting.
Once there, my dad was evaluated by 2 nurses and then loaded onto the helicopter. The helicopter lifted off at 5:05 and headed to Washoe Medical Center in Reno, NV. It was a huge relief to know he would be at a hospital soon. My dad arrived at the ER around 5:30 and an CAT scan was taken. It was clear he needed surgery right away to relieve the pressure from a subdural hematoma that had formed. At 7:00 AM the neurosurgeon performed a craniotomy to relieve the pressure in his skull. After surgery, he was brought to the trauma ICU where he has remained.
In the days that followed my dad required medication to keep his ICP (intracranial pressure) down due to the swelling of his brain. After the first line medication stopped working, the neurosurgeon, Dr. Vaca, decided to put my dad into a medically induced coma with a heavy barbiturate. This was considered a last ditch effort to reduce the swelling. For 2 days it seemed like the medication was reducing the swelling and my dads ICP looked good. After a sudden spike on Saturday night, a MD covering for Dr. Vaca decided to do a brain flow study to evaluate if there was any blood reaching my dads brain. The MD was worried that my dad had herniated his brain stem when his ICP shot up. The brain flow study appeared to show no blood flow reaching his brain and it was at this time (last weekend) that the doctors and nurses started to tell us that he was brain dead and there was very little hope. At this point we changed his code status to “do not resuscitate” (DNR) and started to talk to the donor people about organ donation as per his wishes.
On Monday (August 7th), we met with the donor network and signed all the papers to ok organ donation once my dad was proclaimed deceased. The barbiturate was stopped on Saturday night, after the doctors thought he had herniated his brain stem. At this point we were told the barbiturate would take up to 7 days to be cleared from his body and the doctors could not proclaim him brain dead until this occurred. As the medication slowly began to clear from his body my dad started to cough and exhibit symptoms that were not consistent with brain death. Even after this, the trauma MD came in the room and assured my mom, brother and uncles that these signs did not mean anything and that my dad was definitely brain dead. One hour after this, Dr. Vaca, the head neurosurgeon came into the room and told us that the brain flow study was flawed and that my dad was defiantly not brain dead. In fact, he let us know that the CAT scan from the day prior looked much improved from his previous scan.
After our initial shock, anger, confusion and relief, we were all overjoyed to have our hope back that my dad has a shot to recover from this traumatic injury.
As of today, my dad is still in a coma, but the barbiturates are now completely cleared from his system and he is starting to exhibit signs that his brain is slowly starting to heal including responding to painful stimulus on all extremities, coughing and his eyes are starting to open every so slightly.
We want to thank all of you for you love and support and we will be updating the website as any new developments occur.
Ryan & the Cello Family
