Miracle baby: Youngster recovers after undergoing emergency brain surgery
Published: October 27, 2005
Carter Engstrom is being called the miracle baby by the operating room staff at the Sidney Health Center. The 4-year-old boy is making a miraculous recovery from a severe head injury which required emergency brain surgery in Sidney Health Center’s operating room Oct. 17.
“They said they all can’t help from getting chills when they see him now. One he shouldn’t be here, and two he kept getting better and better. He was up and speaking in full sentences the next day,” Annie Engstrom, Carter’s mother, said.
It happened like every mother’s worst nightmare. Little Carter Engstrom was playing with his four cousins in the living room Oct. 16 when he bumped his head on the corner of the entertainment center. There was only a small mark above his left ear. Little did they realize at the time that an arterial-fed bleed was developing in his head between his skull and brain.
“He hardly cried from the bump. It was just the smallest, non-incident,” Annie said.
Carter seemingly recovered from the fall quickly, and continued playing and laughing with the other boys. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He went along with his mom and cousins out shopping and to the Dairy Queen like any other Sunday afternoon.
“The fall was so insignificant. I would have never remembered it if this all hadn’t have happened,” Annie Engstrom said.
The rest of the day was normal, and he went to sleep that night as usual.
It was when Carter woke up screaming in hysterical pain that the frightening episode began to unfold for the Engstroms. Carter was complaining of his ear hurting, and at first his parents thought perhaps he was in pain from just laying on it all night. They brought him into their room to calm him down but within 45 minutes he was unresponsive. His father Aaron Engstrom, who is a radiology student at Sidney Health Center, knew when he checked his son’s pupils that something was very wrong. Carter’s left pupil was dilated while his right pupil wasn’t.
“My husband was trying not to scare me, but he knew Carter had to get to the emergency room as soon as possible,” Annie said.
They scooped up Carter and their 18-month-old Grant and rushed Carter to the emergency room. He was taken in immediately for a CAT scan. Since Aaron is a student, he wanted to see the scan right away.
“It took about five minutes, and when I saw my husband bawling I knew it was real bad,” she said.
Carter was suffering from an arterial-fed bleed in his head between his skull and brain - a left epidermal hemorrhage. Since it was arterial fed, blood pumps much faster than a vessel, resulting in extreme urgency.
“Ones like that, they will leak, then stop, leak then stop, then blow. Sometimes you have just a few minutes, sometimes hours. Time is crucial because there is pressure being put on the brain,” Aaron said.
The recommendations based on the CAT scan was to airlift Carter to Denver Children’s Hospital for brain surgery. Billings hospital officials didn’t feel comfortable taking on Carter in his severe condition, so they sent the plane to pick him up in Sidney to fly him directly to Denver.
It was after the plane arrived in Sidney that Dr. Ed Bergin made the call that saved Carter’s life. He determined Carter needed emergency brain surgery in Sidney, or he wouldn’t survive.
“I saw that he couldn’t make the trip, so I performed emergency brain surgery. We prepared the OR to remove the blood clot,” Bergin said. “Back East they think they’re practicing rural medicine 30 miles away from the closest trauma unit. Out here sometimes we get put in these positions. I just did what I had to do.”
Bergin, who isn’t a neurosurgeon, talked with one on the phone before the operation. He kept the neurosurgeon on the speaker phone throughout the ordeal, as a reference just incase he ran into anything unexpected.
“I’m no one special, just an average general surgeon. I said some intense prayers, I had a lot of help from a higher power, and that helps a lot. I just did what I had to do. These are the kind of situations that give me gray hairs,” Bergin said.
Annie remembered, “Dr. Bergin said we have to do this or your son won’t make it, and he took Carter back to surgery. He came back in about a half hour, and he was visibly shaken. He knew Carter’s injury was severe.”
Bergin told Annie he had done all he could do, and that he hoped Carter would make it.
“From the looks on all of the nurses faces and Dr. Bergin, I didn’t think Carter was going to make it,” she said.
Aaron flew on the Flight For Life with Carter to the Denver Children’s Hospital, and Annie flew commercially.
In Denver, Dr. Wilkenson performed surgery on Carter and managed to stop the bleeding. Of the three children in surgery that day at Denver Children’s Hospital with the same type of injury, Carter was the only one to survive.
“They took him to ICU after the surgery. The doctors told me we were out of the woods as far as stopping the bleeding, but they didn’t know yet what type of brain damage he would have. We just had to wait and see,” Annie said.
Carter’s recovery was amazing. He spent the day in ICU with a breathing tube but by that night he was able to breath on his own. Within a few hours of removing his breathing tube, he woke up.
When she saw her son was waking up, Annie whispered to him, “mommy’s here,” and much to their surprise, Carter replied, “yep.”
The next day Carter was speaking in complete sentences. Two days later he was able to leave his room with his parents pulling him in a wagon to go look at fish in the fish tank.
“Carter said, ‘look mom at the fish,’ he counted them and commented on their colors. He was showing no signs of brain damage,” Annie said. “He was aware enough to say he wanted to go back home to the 220 house.”
Carter being able to recall the family’s house number is significant, especially since they have only lived there for two months.
On Thursday, Carter’s first day of physical therapy, he beat the odds again as he stood up, walked around and threw a ball through a hoop. Carter continued to amaze everyone in the hospital with his quick improvements. By Friday, Carter’s condition was so impressive that he was released from the hospital to finish his recovery back home in Sidney.
Carter has made massive improvements at home in the short time that he’s been back.
“He’s almost 100 percent. If you couldn’t see the stitches, and didn’t know otherwise, you would never be able to tell he had brain surgery a week ago,” Annie said.
Carter has continued improving, walking, talking and playing just like any other 4-year-old boy.
“Dr. Bergin took such a risk and saved my son’s life. We are so thankful to him and the whole OR staff,” Annie said. “We are so blessed and so fortunate. We love our son and are so happy to have him here with us.”
The Engstroms are new to Sidney and were deeply touched by the level of care and concern the community showed during their parental nightmare episode.
“I just want to say thanks to everyone for all the prayers and support, it did a lot. He’s a miracle,” Aaron said, watching his son play in the living room Monday.
“Dr. Bergin is very brave for doing what he did to save my grandson’s life,” Dave Engstrom, Carter’s grandfather, said.
An account has been established at Stockman Bank for Carter Engstrom to accept donations to help the family with the related expenses.
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