Austin Smith’s Road To Recovery

Austin was in a wreck last night, 4/28/2020, as most of you know. He went immediately to testing and was found to have multiple broken bones: C7-T1(spine), femur, wrist, elbow, ribs. He was placed on the ventilator and sedating IV medications and IV medication to keep his blood pressure up. He was taken immediately to trauma surgery due to suspected blood loss because his blood pressure was very low. During surgery they found his spleen bleeding and removed it. They also found other internal injuries including: possible liver laceration, bruised kidney, and collapsed lung. The pressure from the collapsed lung made him lose a pulse so they did a very short round of CPR and placed a chest tube to resuscitate him and he quickly gained a pulse back. Last night they performed procedures that were critical to life. Before the night was over he was weaned off the blood pressure medicine and was able to keep his blood pressure up on his own. Today, 4/29/2020, is a new day and he remains critical but stable. His mom reports that when they turned his sedation down this morning he was able to wake up and understand what was happening(VERY GOOD NEWS!). However, they are keeping him on the ventilator because he will have surgery on his arms today. They are also watching his femoral artery blood flow to his left leg in case they need to place a stent. Austin is a paraplegic from a previous car accident in 2014. He had a long recovery medically and mentally as you can imagine going from an able bodied 18 year old boy to a paralyzed man overnight. BUT, HE DID IT! He had recently got his own apartment and has been driving on his own for awhile now. He was able to gain his independence for the first time in his life. He started counseling and his perspective on life began to brighten. We all saw him with light in his eyes as he began to thrive. We know God has a purpose for him on this earth. As his sister, I just want to help make his life one of quality with lots of laughter and love. When he is discharged from the hospital he has another difficult journey ahead to get back to the life he had worked so hard to get back to once before. Knowing what we know from his last journey, our family appreciates all the prayers and love above all. We also know this journey comes with its expenses. If you would like to donate to help with his future recovery expenses, Austin would be humbled and very grateful by those blessings. Please share with your friends and family. My brother is a fighter! He has shown us this once before. I have NO DOUBT he will show us the good fight once again! Love You Bub, -your bossy sister, Lyndsey ❤️