The Beginning: The Whole Story - A Short Version

Some of you have been asking what exactly happened to Brandon that put him in this condition. We'll provide a short summary here.

Despite what you may have heard, Brandon was not mauled by a grizzly bear (this rumor started in the hospital ICU), nor did he single-handedly take out an entire gang before one of the last survivors was finally able to hit him with a bat (this rumor originated at WSU-TC). Since Snopes.com doesn't have an urban legend section for Brandon (yet!), this will have to serve as the "official" version to put all those rumors floating around out there to rest.

On March 16, 2010 Brandon visited a podiatrist in Kennewick to have an ingrown toenail removed. He went in, had the procedure, was released, and was checking out with the receptionist in the lobby. Brandon handed the receptionist his debit card and unexpectedly passed out at the counter. When he passed out, he fell to the ground (think, timber!, not crumpled up) and hit the left side of his head just above the ear on the carpeted concrete floor.

The impact of his head on the concrete floor fractured his skull in two places and broke a blood vessel on the surface of his brain (that caused bleeding in the brain and also out of his left ear). The doctor's office called 9-1-1 and then our home number to see if anyone was there that they could notify. Brandon's sister Stephanie got the call and rushed to the doctor's office (she beat the ambulance there!). Brandon was transferred by ambulance to Kennewick General Hospital (KGH) where they performed the first of his four CAT-scans.

The CAT-scan revealed that Brandon had fractured his skull and had arterial bleeding causing a massive blood clot on the left side of his brain. The pressure of the blood clot was pushing against the brain. The emergency room doctor at KGH recommended that we transfer Brandon immediately to Kadlec to have a neurosurgeon look at him, and told us that he would likely need to have surgery right away to remove the blood clot. We asked about flying him to Spokane or Seattle but the doctor told us that it would take several hours to air-lift him, and that the risk of him not pulling through in that amount of time was very, very high. We sent him to Kadlec.

The Kadlec emergency room was waiting for Brandon when he arrived via ambulance from KGH. The neurosurgeon took another CAT-scan and that indicated that the blood clot had grown in size. Indeed, if we had attempted to fly Brandon to Spokane or Seattle, he very likely would have died en route. The neurosurgeon Dr. Fewel performed the emergency surgery to remove the blood clot from Brandon's brain and stop the bleeding. Brandon was then moved into the Intensive Care Unit.

This video below is of Brandon's vitals monitor while in ICU:



The next day Brandon also had a post-surgery CAT-scan to verify that the bleeding in his brain had indeed stopped. The bleeding was stopped, but the damage from the head trauma included losing the hearing in his left ear. Brandon was up and walking about within 24 hours of his surgery.

The video below is of Brandon stretching his legs on a walk with his mom in the hospital.



Brandon was sent home on Friday afternoon, March 19, less than 73 hours after the fall. Sometime over the weekend, Brandon began to show gradual signs of losing muscle control on the left side of his face. We had a hard time detecting it because of the swelling and seeing him all the time, but by Sunday night his face was only showing very limited muscle control and it was obvious that something had changed. Saturday night of that first weekend home, Brandon was in significant pain. We thought this was because of the reduction in his narcotics from what he was being given at the hospital. In hind sight, we think that this may have been the time when his nerve bundle was being squeezed from the swelling of the impact and surgery. Anyways, we are still not sure why Brandon cannot hear out of his left ear, nor control his face muscles on the left side, but all of the doctors think that this is due to localized swelling around the nerve bundle, and that the outlook is very, very optimistic for Brandon to realize a nearly full recovery of both his hearing and face.

So that's the "official" short story.

Praise the Lord for sparing Brandon's life! God is good, and we know that He has a purpose for this tragedy with Brandon. God sent his one and only son that "we might have life, and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10) and we hold fast to that promise.

God Bless,

~the Family

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