Tucker Karl

Thank you for visiting Tucker Karl's CaringBridge site. Our family is overly appreciative of the support and love we have received over the last couple of days.  Your prayers and positive thoughts are felt and we are grateful to have family and friends that care so much.

For those of you who may not know me, I'm Tucker's older sister, Shannon, and I will do my best to keep this site updated so those who want to stay up-to-date on Tucker's situation can receive timely and accurate information. 

On Thursday, May 29th, Tucker was at work and took a significant fall.  He was intubated at the scene and rushed to Reston Hospital where they worked to stabilize him.  A stat CT scan of his head was done and it revealed a skull fracture in two places as well as a Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain).  He was then immediately transported to the Trauma Intensive Care Unit at Fairfax Hospital.  

When there is blood in the brain, the body's response is to increase inflammation at the site of the injury; consequently causing increased pressure in the brain (what's called Intracranial Pressure or ICP). During the first hours at Fairfax TICU, a Neurosurgeon put a monitor in his skull to keep track of the ICP. Because the brain is such a contained part of the body, the swelling has nowhere to go, so it's critical that pressure levels stay below a certain threshold. Doctors and nurses worked to determine the amount of medication he would require to keep his intracranial pressure levels low. When they tried decreasing his medication in an effort to see if he would respond to commands, he became very combative, taking multiple nurses (and my mom) to hold him down.

As of yesterday afternoon, the doctor has decided to put Tucker into a medically-induced coma for the next four or five days. This decision was made in an effort to allow Tucker's body, primarily his brain, to rest.  He is hoping that four days of rest will allow the swelling to reduce. They will check his ICP levels when they decrease the medications and take him out of the coma in order to look for any signs that show improvement. 

We will keep you posted on any updates we may have, please continue to pray for Tuck, we appreciate it more than you know.