On September 5th Jerad was in a vehicle accident. He was non-responsive when the paramedics arrived, he was then ambulanced to Redfield, stabilized, transported to Huron and from there flown to Avera McKennan in Sioux Falls. When Jerad arrived in Sioux Falls, he was taken into surgery to repair spinal injuries. He sustained a C6 vertebrae injury, as well as damage to his spinal cord. Today, he has no feeling from the chest down but is able to move his shoulders and elbows with very little movement in his hands. He was placed on a ventilator when he arrived in Sioux Falls. The ventilator was removed yesterday morning as the doctors wanted to give Jerad a chance to breath on his own since he was such a healthy young man with no previous health issues. Jerad did very well without the ventilator for most of the day, he was able to talk and was asking a lot of questions ("Why am I here?" "How long have I been here?", "What are my injuries?", etc.). These are all very hard questions to answer, we (Jerad's family) have chosen to wait until he is stronger to answer the hardest question of all... "Why cant I move my legs?". He still has his sense of humor; he was cracking a few jokes, blowing kisses, and smiling some of the day. The respiratory team was assisting Jerad with his coughing as of right now his diaphragm is not strong enough for him to cough on his own. The secretions were going into his lungs; which in turn, had to be suctioned out. Later in the evening his breathing became very labored, Jerad's team of doctors and nurses made the decision to put him back on the ventilator. He was very upset about this news knowing that they would have to go through his mouth and wouldn't be able to talk or even mouth the words to us. So, for now we pray..
We have had a lot of question on how to make a monetary donation to Jerad, a GOFUNDME page has been established;
https://www.gofundme.com/2eg5hrng
