This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Six year-old Xander Carlson of Longmont fell from a three-story window on June 3rd sustaining multiple critical injuries including head trauma, a shattered eye socket, internal organ damage, and several broken bones, but is now home recuperating in Longmont with friends and family.
The 45-foot fall occurred in Northern Minnesota in the town of Hibbing on a visit with grandparents, which resulted in a sixteen day stay and two major surgeries at Children’s Minnesota Hospital.
According to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, incidents with windows are a top five hidden home hazard, which is why they advise homeowners to install window guards and move large objects below windows to prevent falls.
Xander is an independent, energetic, curious, and active six year-old who recently entered a phase over the past several months where he liked to climb everything.
“Every time I'd look at him, he'd be up here, climbing up on the porch, or climbing the neighbor's fence,” said mom, Aimee Carlson. “Getting this climbing bug lately where I'm like, ‘Oh my god, you're climbing everything.’ We'd be in the store and he's climbing a pole. And it's like, ‘What’s going on? Why are you climbing so much?’”
The fall happened while Xander was playing upstairs and Grandma was washing dishes downstairs. The window was full-sized in an older Victorian style home with a bench near the window. He was looking outside while pressing on a window screen that eventually gave way.
Xander’s older sister Layla was playing on the other side of the room when it happened and ran downstairs to tell Grandma, Kelly Carlson-Gazelka, who was confused temporarily about why she could hear his cries just outside the window.
When EMTs arrived (before they sedated him), Xander was coherent enough that he was crying; he knew basic information, like his parent’s names, and the fact that he was in kindergarten, but was confused by the situation he found himself in. It is still unknown what he fell on exactly or what body part hit the ground first, doctors could not say by looking at his injuries.
Mom was in Colorado when she got incomplete, rushed news about Xander’s condition from family, and made a sixteen-hour drive overnight to Minnesota to be with him. She stayed in contact with doctors about Xander’s critical condition and was told they had him stable enough for her to drive safely.
“I started cracking up laughing, I couldn't stop. It was like I was in such shock. It was really weird. That happened to me one other time. I was in an accident, a really bad accident in high school, I had blood everywhere, and I was laughing,” said Aimee.
Xander was first flown to St. Mary's Children’s Hospital in Duluth where it was assessed that his injuries were serious enough that he needed to be flown to Children’s Minnesota Hospital. He suffered two seizures and had blood transfusions during the transportations.
“He just looked awful. I was so shocked to see him. I knew he was bad, but I didn't know he was that bad. He had the neck brace on him. His eyes were just so swollen, his head, everything, was just, it was awful. Nobody really knew how he was going to do because he had so much severe damage to his internal organs at that point. He was bleeding so much. That was pretty scary that first day,” said Ms. Carlson. “Then I just got calm after sitting there for a minute. I just had this calm come over me. I just felt like it was going to be okay, as severe as it was, I was like, ‘Oh, we'll get through it.’”
Doctors told the family that if he were a full-sized adult, Xander wouldn’t have survived the three-story fall. He was in critical condition from brain swelling for the first 24-48 hours but ended up staying stable. He severely lacerated his kidney, liver, and lower vena cava and had internal bleeding. He broke both wrists and shattered his femur.
The bone supporting his eye orbit on the right side was severely crushed putting pressure on the brain, so fragments were floating around in his skull that needed to be removed. At that time, the only movements he made were his fingers and toes when he was uncomfortable.
“The nurses there were wonderful, especially our first couple of days. We had an amazing nurse; his name was Ian and he was just so good at explaining everything. They were all just so good at explaining and every morning I’d have this team of surgeons waking me up because a couple of nights I slept with him in his bed,” said Aimee.
Xander’s first surgery was on his femur where they put two metal plates and screws on the bone as well as a dissolvable meshing around the whole area instead of using a cast on the leg, but they did put both his forearms in a cast.
They waited to do the brain surgery until the following week because the neurosurgeon wanted a specifically skilled ENT who was on vacation to perform the procedure, so they kept Xander sedated until then.
The second surgery was much more complex and difficult since it was near the brain. When they removed the forehead, they could see the right eye orbit was completely shattered, so they rebuilt both eye orbits, the sinus cavity, and removed the fragmented bone that perforated the lining of his brain and was leaking cerebral spinal fluid. He had several transfusions during the surgery because he lost a lot of blood.
The second surgery turned out to be the best-case scenario for how critical his injuries were. They even cut and stitched the skin on the top of his head in a zigzag pattern, so if Xander decides to hide the scar when he gets older, he can just grow his hair out.
“They said after the brain surgery you can imagine to be home after three or five days, and I was like, ‘Really?!’ So, it was his internal organs, we were just waiting to see his stomach work. Then once that started working, I knew that we'd be going home,” said Aimee.
Xander returned home by plane on Thursday the 20th with no complications during the travel. He still has doctor visits ahead of him with occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech at KidSpot in Louisville, and follow-ups at Children's Hospital Colorado, but doctors say Xander should eventually be able to go back to doing what he loves most which is swimming, riding his scooter, playing outdoors, and maybe Jiu Jitsu in about a year.
Aimee appreciated all the healing thoughts. “It was just the support that got me through a lot of that, like ‘We're praying for you. We're here for you.’ Reading those when I'm sitting in this room, it was just me and him at night and especially when he was under still, sedated, that really helped get us through. To have all that support from hundreds of people just writing like, ‘We're here. We're supporting you. Thinking of you.’”
“Just getting the feedback from others. I really leaned heavily on the power of prayer and the collaboration of the whole community. I would say my faith was huge in getting me through this.”
Two separate GoFundMe campaigns (here and here) were set up by friends of the family, both with the aim of helping the family with Aimee Carlson as the beneficiary.
At this stage in the healing process, Humpty Dumpty jokes have even been floating around friends and family, but only as long as Xander seems to be okay with it. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Xander back together again, but the doctors sure could.
