The Baseball Accident

Baseball is a dangerous sport, and we've always known that injuries happen. We've dealt with sore arms from pitching, but Dad seems to have taken the most damage, with a broken pinkie from a line drive at third, and a permanent scar in his mouth from taking a line drive at second, but both of those were minor compared to what happened to Dax before a Saturday morning game in the Saratoga Springs league.

He left for the 10:30 game at about 9:30, with Dad (the coach) showing up a little later. Around 10:00, just as Dad was gearing up to leave, Dax called totally frantic! He said he’d been pitching in the cage and taken a line drive to the face. He could feel a dent in his skull just at the corner of his eye, and he was certain that he'd broken his skull. Dad told him he was on the way and tossed some ice in a bag. Natalie was in the shower, so Dad left Seth with what information he had and burst out the door. Then he called Dax back as he drove over to Patriot Park. Dax was really upset, begging and pleading with Dad to get there. Dad asked where Dax was, and he’d walked out to the road by himself (No adults were there, and kids apparently didn't know to stay with a head injury!) Dad was driving “erratically” to put it mildly, but he picked him up and had already put in the directions to AF Hospital 22 minutes away. Dax actually looked pretty ok: minimal swelling, he was alert, and there was only a tiny lesion at the tip of his eyebrow. But he was really suffering. He threw up right after they got out of the car at the Emergency Room. In fact, he threw up for about the next four hours. He kept refilling those long blue up-chuck bags and replacing them. The doctor ordered a CT scan around Dax’s eye to check for fractures. Sure enough, he had fractured his occipital bone on both sides of his left eye. That meant he needed a second CT from a different angle to see if the bones were pushing into the muscles around his sinuses or eye.

Dax's eye looked rough.

The second CT Scan showed that the dent Dax had felt in his skull just between his cheekbone and tip of his eyebrow was pushing into the muscles around his eye. His skull was definitely broken. Dax was referred to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake to see if surgery would be needed. Without surgery, it was possible that there would be nerve damage that would cause permanent loss of eye movement (not vision, but the ability to move your eye.) We ran Dax home to change and grab necessaries, and Bishop Gurney helped us give him a blessing. Dax refused all pain medication, but the vomiting persisted all the way into the hospital and beyond. We made it to SLC around 2:30. We saw half a dozen doctors, (trauma, maxillofacial, ENT, neurology, ophthalmology, etc.) all back at PCH where Seth had surgery all those years ago. (Seth stayed with Melanie throughout the day rather than making a triumphant return to the hospital.)

He rode in a wheelchair on his way to the CT scans.

Seth came to the AF hospital, but didn't want to spend all day at the hospital with us.

The doctors were concerned about eyes, ears, sinuses, muscles that move the cheeks, brows, and of course, the brain. Though Dax had only lost consciousness for a few seconds, and he had full memory before and after, the vomiting indicated a concussion, and we weren't sure how bad it was. (We only knew 2 of the doctors, one who was the father of my student who now has 6 kids, and one who confessed to following Mom on social media.) Dax was mostly quiet through all this. He seemed most concerned that his cousins' trip to Florida with Grandma and Grandpa might be affected (I asked, and even with surgery, it shouldn’t be, so he can still go fishing for marlin).

Back in Primary Children's brought back a lot of memory.

Ophthalmology said that Dax had blunt force trauma to his retina. This was causing the flashing lights that he could see. The doctor could see the contusion on the retina, but she expects it to heal like any lump. She said it is unlikely to change or permanently affect his vision, so that felt like a win. However, surgery was still necessary, based on the broken skull piece that was pushing into Dax's face. 

After many long hours at the hospital, we took Dax home with hope that this was nothing more than a broken bone (though a broken bone that required surgery), and tried to get some sleep. 

Dax had to pass a road test to go home, which meant walking around the hallway without falling or getting dizzy. 

What it looked like right before heading home.

Dax doesn’t remember the actual impact, but he does remember just before and after. He remembers throwing the pitch (the last one in the empty bucket) and then clutching the net around the cage to keep from falling. He remembers making his way over to his phone and calling Dad. Then he staggered out to the road, all of which he remembers. The CT scan showed no damage to his brain, so we are thinking there is no serious concussion, just a few broken bones. There was a protective net in the cage, shaped like Utah for right-handers. However, after Dax threw the last ball from the bucket, he reached down to start gathering balls, and that's when he was struck. The blow shattered his sunglasses, which left a little cut on his face.