Sunday, November 9, 2008

Concussion, ambulance, and ER for Kaiden

SO, last night was quite the adventure.
I went to put the kids down to bed. Ky had a fever of 102. So we had her on motrin. Kd didn't have a fever but he was getting motrin because they both are sick. Full blown nasty coughs and noses.
Their bedroom is completely child proof. Or so I thought. That didn't stop them from not being child proof from each other. We had taken out the toddler beds and just put the mattresses on the floor. Since Kd had fallen out of his crib we went to toddler beds. Ky fell out of her toddler bed, and hit her head and woke up with bruises. So that's when we decided to put the mattresses on the floor.
Anyway, so they were running around the room and ran right in to each other. No biggie I thought, they do it all the time. But then Kd went to step up onto his mattress and slipped. The thing is only 5 inches high. I noticed right away something was wrong. Usually when he falls, he either cries or get's back up. He didn't do either.
I called his name, and his body flopped over. I ran in the room and called his name. He didn't respond. He was face down, so I did the best spine protecting roll over for him as I could. But I was worried that he wasn't making any noise. As soon as I turned him over he went completely stiff. His whole right side of his body contorted behind him. He turned the deepest purple and blue I have ever seen. He completely stopped breathing. His eyes rolled back in his head and was getting even more blue. DH was already on the phone with 911 by that point and they were sending an ambulance out right away.
I started giving him mouth to mouth for about 10-15 seconds and his color returned. Then his body went limp and he still wouldn't respond. He finally would open his eyes, but then he would black out again. The whole ordeal lasted about 1 minute. That was the scariest minute of my entire life. The ambulance arrived within 5 minutes of the call, thankfully we live on a military post with an ambulance on standby.
By the time they got here, he was mostly awake. Still kind of lethargic. He wouldn't talk or anything. He didn't make a sound.
I was in the back of the ambulance. There was an ambulance, fire engine, and military police on scene. Then more firetrucks came in addition to another ambulance. Apparently the call we put through to 911 got confused because instead of just the military emergency response team coming, the Washington DC response team came.
The DC team was called off and we headed lights and sirens to childrens hospital. We were put through triage quickly and sent to the back. They did all the neuro tests on him and by then he was back to acting like his usual self again.
The docs were confused as to how exactly he ended up unconconscious and not breathing. We think it was the way he fell that maybe gave him a concussion. They also said it could have been a febrile seizure, but I explained to him that I used to be a medic and my brother used to have seizures, and that was definately not a febrile seizure. I also explained that I had just taken both of their temps about 15 min. before the episode happened because I knew Ky was running a high fever. But Kd didn't have one.
So around midnight we got home. Ky was still having a fever of 102 and she was shaking like crazy. They were both coughing horribly. DH and I have been up all night with both of them.
That was the absolute scariest night of my life.

2 comments:

PinkPickles said...

OMG Amber! How incredibly scary! I only hope if I were ever in that situation (God forbid) that I could react as promptly and calmly as I imagine you did. Great job, mama!

Unknown said...

WOW!! I have a three yr old that fell of our counter and fractured his skull! He is the dare-devilist kid I have ever seen and he is always a challenge for me. It was so scary for ME so I can only imagine what you went through. GOSH! Hope everyone is good now.