On Friday evening, November 10th, Kole was driving home from Bloomington and due to the slippery conditions, he lost control of his truck and had a minor accident. Unfortunately, as he and a young man (Good Samaritan who had stopped to help him) were moving his truck out of the way, both Kole and the man were struck by another car. See bottom of this post for a link to the news story.
They were both brought to HCMC and upon arrival it was discovered that in addition to fractures in his pelvis and leg, Kole was experiencing a highly-dangerous amount of internal bleeding due to heart artery damage. They immediately took him into the OR, where at one point 11 doctors and nurses were working on him simultaneously. They managed to stabilize him which was a miraculous outcome. Please pray for this artery to continue to heal fully.
Since that time, Kole has been extremely well cared for in HCMC's Pediatric ICU. He is able to breathe on his own, however he is currently being helped to breathe with a ventilator and kept sedated so that his body can work on healing without the additional stress of being aware of his surroundings and feeling the pain of his current condition. There will be many stages in his healing journey ahead, but Kole has so far exceeded doctors' expectations here. His vital signs are positive and he is strong and cognitively alert when awake.
We are incredibly grateful that he suffered no head or spinal injuries. His injuries at this point appear to be some minor damage to internal organs, which are being repaired and monitored and will hopefully be fully restored. He has multiple fractures in his pelvis and right leg that will need to be repaired in additional surgery(ies) and we have been told that he will be healing for weeks rather than days. These surgeries will not take place until after the internal organ and bleeding issues are resolved to the doctors' satisfaction and his abdomen can be closed up and begin to heal externally.
There will be another surgery this afternoon and the trauma team is cautiously optimistic that they will be able to not only flush things out and do a visual check for stability in his organs, heart and abdomen, but also be able to actually close him up so that he can start to heal fully in this area of his body. Please pray now for a successful surgery and we will post another update afterward.
We are so grateful for the power of prayer, for your love and well wishes for us, our family and for Kole. Please note that visitation is very limited at this time. Would you please post messages here for Kole so that we can read them to him? This will encourage us and him so much.
Also, we appreciate that so many of you have stepped forward to offer help of one kind or another and we are working on a Lotsa Helping Hands page where you can sign up for meals, rides and more as our needs become more specific. We will share this very soon as well.
http://kstp.com/news/i-35w-crash-in-bloomington-leaves-2-seriously-injured/4666560/ 
