Join Us to Support Marty’s Recovery

During the early afternoon of Sunday, February 2nd, Marty was in a severe snowmobile accident. Unfortunately, Marty wasn’t wearing a helmet and he was ejected from the snowmobile causing very traumatic injuries. Marty’s cousin Mike was on a separate snowmobile and witnessed the accident and immediately called Kathy to call 911. Mike provided CPR and also held pressure on Marty’s head wound. Due to dropping blood pressure the medical team had to perform a (successful) second resuscitation attempt. Once stabilized they airlifted him to Regions Hospital.

Now that it’s been a few days we have a better understanding of Marty’s condition and all of his injuries. He has a fractured skull, eye socket, and ear. His sternum is cracked along with a broken rib. He had multiple brain bleeds and underwent surgery Monday morning which went well. He will stay intubated on the ventilator for the foreseeable future because his body needs time to rest and heal.

Marty suffered 7 broken vertebrae as a result of this accident. He is unbelievably lucky because the fractures are C6-7 and T1-5. The neurosurgeon is considering doing a fusion later this week which wouldn’t limit his range of motion too much. Considering his fractures are lower in the neck he has a much lower risk for paralysis.

Despite all of this Marty has been moving both arms and a leg. He’s opening his eyes when asked and even nods to questions. Marty has an extremely long journey ahead of him. It’s been a rough couple of days but thank you to everyone who has expressed concern and reached out to offer support. We appreciate you all so much and are fortunate to have such amazing people around us.

Right now the most important thing is to keep Marty’s agitation low. The slightest bit of sound, touch, or movement can be irritating to people with brain injuries. We kindly ask that people refrain from visiting right now so he can get that much-needed rest.

Once again thank you all so much for your continued support. We will do our best to keep you updated when we know more but for now, this is a waiting game.