Stone's Fund to Help With Expenses after Accident

We had one of the most unfortunate and heart breaking experiences when our trip to Legoland ( the trip that our sweet, Austic/Lego obsessed little 4 year old boy has been over the moon to go on for months) turned into a disaster. This fundraiser is to cover some of the expenses of what amounted to us driving 2000 miles for an ER visit, surgery, and overnight stay at a hospital.

We saved up for as long time to go on this trip to Legoland and stay at their hotel. We were going on my birthday, but really it was for my son, who's greatest passion is Legos. To be economical, we decided to rent a car to drive down to Carlsbad, California (just North of San Diego). We stayed overnight in San Fran (which my 2 year old daughter got sick in the car 4 times during this leg of the trip), but finally made it to the Legoland resort hotel in the evening on March 6th. Over 19 hours of driving. We did get to enjoy the hotel for just a bit before heading to bed that night.

We woke up, ate breakfast, and played in the lobby until it just was just before 10AM, when the parked open.

We were moments away from 2 days of fun, but it then turned into one of the most traumatic experiences for our family.

Stone was injured in the lobby by the play strucure (there was a step down, by a play pit of legos where legos were scattered the floor) just before the exit doors of the hotel that leads to the park. As he was screaming we saw his arm was deformed at the elbow. I ran to find the hotel staff, and eventually an EMT came and said we needed to take him in immediately. We took Stone to the ER, to find out he fractured his elbow, but because of the nature, they had to operate to put things back in place. He would receive pins in his arm, and a full arm cast. He would have to remain overnight for monitoring for swelling.

That whole day of March 7th completely broke my soul. I called the hotel while Stone was prepping for surgery, to let them know his progress, and to say my mother and daughter were still at the hotel and might need a night extra to stay because we weren't sure how long he'd be at the ER.

Their response was just something I didn't expect at all, especially from a company for kids... and it broke my heart. I had thought, since our trip was obviously over and there would be no way to continue to make my baby's dream vacation continue at this point, that the least they would do is take care of us so we could try our trip again after Stone healed, especially since he got injured in their lobby. I had honestly hoped maybe for compassion, considering the trauma that we'd been put through.

Instead, they said the most they could do is off vouchers to use our park tickets within a year (the tickets to the park are actually fairly inexpensive, especially compared to the hotel price and travel).

I pleaded with them about the situation. How much we saved to be able to get this trip to be a reality, and that's it's not something we'd be able to accomplish again for a while. How Stone had been asking every day for months when we'd be going to Legos and roller coasters. And how much he lit up and how excited he was the morning on our way to the park.

It didn't matter. The treatment we got from Legoland was cold, and unwavering.

I had to tell my sweet, hurt boy several times in the hospital that we can't go back to Legoland after he kept asking about it, which brought him to tears and broke my heart.

Our trip has caused so much physical and emotional pain, that will be a slow heal all around. If we can recoup a little of what we lost, I'm hoping we can try to go on a trip after he heals to somewhere that he can be equally excited about. Our family could really use all the support and help after such a hard experience.

I had so much love for Lego, as an adult fan, and a loving mother of a little boy who obsesses over those brightly colored bricks, with all his amazing imagination. Now, I will always have this experience associated with what was a core part of our family.