Wiley Elwood

First off don’t worry he is responding and doing a lot better and thank you for the prayers.  But we have had a lot of questions about what happened. 

On early Saturday afternoon Wiley and his sisters werehelping tie up show calves for first time this fall down at the ranch.  He was crawling on top of a creep feeder and
had a fall, as he went down he pulled the side wing folding panel down with him.  When he hit the ground the panel hit him right on the head and knocked him unconscious.  His sisters saw it happen (they are a little worked up from it).  April and Shane were in the next pen and came running when they heard the commotion.  We took him immediately to the hospital in Chamberlain; sorry if we met you on the gravel on the way to town!  He was unconscious for 10 to 15 minutes and was bleeding out of the ear.  It was a very scary and intense 15 minutes that felt like a lot longer.  We met a deputy at West Forty and Shane and the deputy took him to the hospital from there with the rest of the family in hot pursuit.

For as knocked out and unresponsive as he was on the way to town, when we got to the hospital, he answered questions rather quickly.  And did he ever fight and scream when he had
an IV and a pain shot.  We took his screams and fighting as good signs.  He calmed down with some pain medicine and had a cat scan before they airlifted him to Sioux Falls an hour later, about 6 Saturday night.  The CAT scan showed no damage to spine but did show a little bleeding on his brain. 

Danny was on his way home for the weekend because of a rain in North Dakota and had made good time to Chamberlain.  He was able to talk to Wiley before he was
loaded on the plane to Sioux Falls. 

In Sioux Falls they took some more cat scans and the blood spot was a little bigger and they found that he had fractured his skull as well.  He also had torn a little
cartridge on his ear which was some of the blood on his ear.  He had a very long night and had to wake every hour throughout the night.  A few of the times he did not respond very well, from tiredness or his head.  But this morning he was more responsive and gave the thumbs up.  He is talking and knows what happened.  He will have a very
long few weeks – he liked the no school idea, but the no games, no TV and take it easy speech took the fun out of that. 

We do not know how long he will be in Sioux Falls.  The girls are down with Grandma and Grandpa at the ranch and Danny and April are both in Sioux Falls.  We appreciate the calls and prayers and thank you for all the offers of support.  We try to keep Caring Bridge updated to what else we learn.