Steve's story 

See Steve's 2009 Miracle Kid video (WYOU)

It was August 2008, and 12-year-old Steve, out for a ride with friends, was trapped in an all-terrain utility vehicle.

The “gator” had overturned about a half-mile from his family’s house, and Steve knew he was hurt – but stayed calm.  He called home for help and waited for that help to come.

None of his friends who were with him, none of his family members who saw him after he made it back home, and not even Steve himself could predict the life-threatening situation that would follow that accident.

“His color wasn’t good, and he was having some pain, mostly in his leg,” his mother, Kelly, remembers.  A little later, they noticed the bruising he had on his side.  By that evening, Steve – an avid athlete who loves football – almost passed out while taking a bath.

“I knew something was wrong,” Kelly says.

She took him to the emergency room at their community hospital, where tests were run and Steve was kept for observation.  When he appeared to be doing better the next day – eating and drinking – he was discharged.

That night, however, he was back in the hospital after his stomach pain returned.  Again, the process went full circle – he seemed to slowly improve, and returned home a few days later.

“We were at the hospital for a week, then home for a week,” Steve’s dad, Steve Sr., remembers.

Then it continued.  Steve developed a fever and seemed to be getting worse.

“We took him to the Geisinger emergency room, and within a few hours, he was in the operating room,” Kelly says. 

“When I got to the ER, I knew he was really sick,” says Karen Bailey, MD, pediatric surgeon at Geisinger’s Janet Weis Children’s Hospital.  “His prognosis was not good without surgery right away.”

“They said that in another three or four hours, he probably would have lost his leg,” Steve Sr. says, “and in another eight hours, he probably would be dead.”

It had been a close call, but he still was far from the healthy, active kid he had been.  The battle for his life was ongoing over the next hours, days and weeks.

Steve was suffering from a severe infection and bowel perforation, and the infection had damaged the blood supply to his muscles.  To help him, Dr. Bailey had to remove much of the muscle on the side of his abdomen, clear as much of the infection as possible and repair his bowel.  It took six hours.

“This was a huge surprise to the family.  Kids are resilient, and this just appeared to be bruising on the outside,” Dr. Bailey says.  “It’s the worst thing to have to tell the family how serious the situation is.  You can’t prepare them.  You just have to be honest with them, and assure them that you’ll do everything you can to save their son’s life.”

“We had gone from being in the ER, talking, thinking it was a minor thing, to – in a matter of five minutes – a disaster,” Kelly says.

Unfortunately, after that first surgery, the prognosis still was unclear.  Steve’s parents could tell by the look on Dr. Bailey’s face that there wasn’t much room for optimism yet.

The next day, Steve underwent a second surgery.

“After that second surgery, when she came out of the OR, you could see by her face,” Kelly says.  “Until then, she always looked devastated.  But she had a smile on her face this time.”

Dr. Bailey wasn’t certain what the outcome would be, but she did tell them they could have a little hope.  And she knew Steve would do everything he could to get better.

“He was just so brave.  He touched all of our hearts,” Dr. Bailey says.

Steve spent a week in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) before improving enough to move to the adolescent/teenager inpatient floor, where he would continue to recover and overcome the remaining problems with his stomach.

“It was a long month,” Kelly remembers, but 31 days after he arrived at Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, Steve was able to go home.  The family members – including siblings Herbie, Jesse and Stephanie – were thrilled to have him back home and see him doing so much better.  His only medical instructions were to take it easy and avoid contact sports – a tough request for the football player, but one he could live with. 

Follow-up care required subsequent surgeries – the most recent of which was in March 2009 – but all have gone well.  And Steve is slowly starting to participate in his favorite sports again, showing very few signs of the serious problems he faced – beyond the battle scars. 

“As a mom, you’re always afraid something like this will happen,” Kelly says.  “It was devastating and horrible, but now to see him up and around – it’s incredible.”