A friend of mine in Georgia wrote this to an endurance riding email list yesterday:
On a serious note. I had a student who was an *amazing* skater...as in
one of those kids who goes flying down the sidewalk, leaps up, rides the
handrail, leaps across to the other hand rail on the other side, turns a
few times and jumps off the side of the retainer wall the handrail was
above and lands skating backwards 1 story down. He was also a movie
maker...carried a camera everywhere, filmed other skaters and had them
film him. He won a city wide movie contest last year. He also taught me
how to use a movie making program so his number is at the top of my
cellphone directory for tech help. May 23 he was on the 5th floor of an
abandoned building taking photos with a new camera and stepped onto a
piece of corrugated fiberglass roofing laying on the floor, only it
wasn't laying on the floor it was laying over a 5 story abandoned
elevator shaft. He fell five stories and landed on some boards which kept
him from going down to the basement. He had a compound fracture of the
femur but otherwise hardly had a scratch on him. However, he has been in
a coma for 32 days now. He'll never walk again, can only hope he's not
paralized from the neck down. Crushed his C-5 which was replaced with
metal and totally dislocated a lower vertabrae which is now braced with a
rod. All these years I've been on his case about how dangerous his
*skating* was, and he gets hurt taking pictures! I watched a video of him
today doing all those amazing things, then read the update on the website
they set up for him describing the tremendous news that he licked a
lollipop on command yesterday. The moral is, live while you can. Every
day's a gift. Asher and I had really hit it off because we both had
hobbies we were obsessed with. He was more like us than most.
Prayer is a huge part of Asher's recovery effort and I invite any of you
who have the urge to visit http://asher.chattablogs.com Asher's dad has
been very specific in his request for prayer each day and it's one of the
best uses of the net I've come across so far. Thanks,
Angie
I visited the blog and left a note. Angie's right. It is one of the best uses of the net that I can see. I've been close to this situation, but thankfully not fully there. When my son was about twelve and we'd just moved to Cairo, he and I went riding on our mares in the desert. As we were gallloping across the supposedly empty desert, we came to the top of a small hill and found ourselves face to face with three other riders walking horses in the opposite direction. Having to make evasive maneuvers at fairly high speed, the horse my son was riding slipped in the sand and went down. He had a mild concussion but more importantly a compression fracture of the 3rd and 4th dorsal vertebrae. When we CAT scanned him, there was only about a millimeter before he would have been paralysed from the chest down. The mare he was riding got up after the accident and stood quietly by his side while we saw to him and she carried him quietly back to the stables, there not being any other form of transport available. She was promised the best of care from me for this gift and she is still with me and treasured for having cared for my son.
Miracles happen and I do believe that the combined love of people who focus on a need can help. If you have the time to visit Asher's site and leave a note, and if you can think of him and offer love for his healing, please do.
