Bobby’s Story: Not Deterred by Brain, Other Injuries

Bobby’s mom:  My son didn’t want to get in the car and he told his friends that every time they got into that car, something bad happened.

I just got a call at 2 o’clock in the morning on January 4th from Bobby’s dad saying that he had been in a bad car accident.

Physician:  He was a passenger in a motor vehicle collision.  He had loss of consciousness at the scene and was intubated.  A breathing tube was placed before he arrived.

Bobby’s mom:  And there were four gentlemen including my son in a car, two people in the car that they hit and my son was the only one to have an injury.

Physician:  Bobby had a significant brain injury.  Dr. Colle was the neurosurgeon on call and Dr. Colle was able to take him to the operating room to remove part of his skull and relieve some of the pressure in the brain.

Bobby’s mom:  Just walking in to that room and seeing him in that state was – you don’t know how to really feel.  It’s – but a sense of determination came over me.  It’s my son.  I just want him to fight for his life.

Physician:  He was brought to Miami Valley as a level 1 trauma center.  The facility is able to take care of almost any injury that a patient would have including the head injury.  And having specialists like Dr. Colle available that can quickly take the patient to the operating room to relieve the pressure in the brain, to evacuate the bleeding that’s occurring in the skull is the difference between life and death or a functional recovery or not.

Bobby’s mom:  I’m not sure what’s it called, the procedure that they did to him, but I just know that he had to have two pieces of his skull removed so that the swelling could go down in his brain.  He was just bleeding at the brain pretty bad, lost a lot of blood.  Had to have blood transfusions, comatose for 15 days, tubes, probes, all kinds of things that I had never encountered, breathing machines, IVs.  It was a journey.

Physician: The brain definitely does a tremendous amount of regulation for our body.  And when it’s – when it’s injured or broken, there’s a lot of things that the nurses and physicians have to take over in the way of caring for that patient—coughing, debreathing, things we take for granted needs to be accomplished to keep the lungs clear, to prevent pneumonia, ward off pressure sores, provide adequate nutrition, prevent blood clots.  So there’s a lot of things we do during the day that need to be taken over by somebody else while the body – while the brain – while the brain continues to heal.

Bobby’s mom:  When he was sleeping and they were trying to get him together, it was – they were serious faced, you know. They had a serious look, you know.  They didn’t want too much noise.  They didn’t want too many people in there.  But, as he began to wake up, I began to see the stress kind of melt on their faces too.

Physician:  It impacts you also and the people around you working with you.  You know, the chaplains are here to kind of help work with us when we’re having a down day or when things are getting bad.  So it is – it goes both ways.  There – you need to have a skillset to work with the patients and the families, but you also have to have some insight to realize that there are times that this is a little bit more than you had planned on doing also.

Bobby Birdsong:  I remember a moment from getting dropped off to the car and I was here and I woke up, I’m here.  I didn’t know what was going on.

Bobby’s mom:  Bobby is a work in progress, you know.  Part of having that injury is not – part of having a traumatic brain injury is not realizing how severe your injury is.

Physician:  The fact that Bobby needed to go to the operating room urgently after his accident and the fact that that – the people and the staff and the facilities were available are a big reason why Bobby improved to the point he has today.

Bobby Birdsong:  I just want to thank everyone for my – who really – not necessarily care, I mean, because people had to do their job, I thank everyone who was involved but, you know, my main appreciation is to the ones who really cared like not necessarily care like they were my family but went a little bit extra with it like, “Okay, I felt like I got to save his life.  Like this is – it’s a must.  I see people around here who got love for him and he’s just been through a lot and I want to get that away from his life.”  And I thank those people.

Bobby’s mom:  I’m good.  My baby boy is here.  I’m – I’m grand.  I’m in the beautiful.  My baby is walking around every day, it’s like a miracle to be honest to see him.  So I’m – I’m good.