Miracle boy ready to run
Published: April 23, 2007
Leslie Hodgeman’s “miracle boy” is finally returning to school. Hodgeman’s 7-year-old son, Logan Thompson, has been out of school for more than three months after he was badly hurt in a car accident Dec. 20, 2006, near their home.
The mother and son had gone out on a last-minute Christmas shopping trip on a rainy night when their car slid off the road. The car hit a guardrail, flipped at least once and plowed into a ditch. Hodgeman was lucky; she walked away with only a bump on her head. Her son, who was strapped in a car seat, also crawled out of the car by himself and initially did not seem to be seriously injured. Still, he was transported by ambulance to OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria for examination.
It turned out the boy had suffered severe lacerations of his liver, one of his lungs had collapsed and he had two fractured ribs. Fluid was building in his chest and stomach and he underwent emergency surgery.
“They said at that point that it was 50/50 if he would make it,” Hodgeman said. Her son was placed on a ventilator for 2 1/2 weeks and put in a medicated coma in the pediatrics ICU area while doctors watched his progress. They inserted several tubes in his stomach, chest and sides to help his wounds drain.
“They were not sure he was going to make it; they were really surprised,” Hodgeman said.
Thompson battled several infections in his stomach that threatened his recovery. And, as he lay for many weeks in a hosson, who taught for years at Raymond Marquith School in East Galesburg. Nelson, who won the first Knox County Teacher of the Year Award and was the recipient of the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award in 1999, retired in 2000, but has continued to substitute teach in Knoxville. Nelson knew Thompson’s mother from her work as a cook at Mable Woolsey School and they arranged for Nelson to tutor the boy to get him back to speed.
“Once a teacher, always a teacher,” Nelson said.
Nelson works with the boy two hours every day in a homebound instruction program administered by the school. They study math, reading, phonics and science.
“He’s doing great, he really works hard,” Nelson said. “I think he’s much more interested in learning about things now.”
Now the family thinks a lot about the other patients they met at the hospital and they wonder about their recovery stories, too.
“Saint Francis is a wonderful place, but it’s also a wonderful place to leave,” Nelson said.
“Yes, you cry for yourself, but you cry for everybody else,” added Hodgeman.
Since coming home, Thompson has undergone physical therapy to strengthen his limbs, and a little over a week ago his doctors pronounced him fit and well.
“They’ve all been totally amazed at how fast he’s come along,” Hodgeman said. “He’s 100 percent now. It’s amazing to know what he’s gone through and how far he’s come. He’s my miracle boy.”
“I look at things so differently,” Hodgeman said. Her husband, Jamie, has been a source of support for both her son and herself, she said.
Along with school work, Thompson is back at his chores at home, which include feeding his dog and cat, reading at least one book a day, picking up his room and brushing his teeth. He enjoys golf, and just a few days ago he rode his bike again for the first time all winter.
He smiles when he thinks of returning to school Tuesday.
“The kids are going to go wild!,” he said. “Of course I’ll be running around a lot.”
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