Thriveworks | Danny's Story
Story 192

It was a nice sunny day. We had left my son's jiu-jitsu class, it was his first time, and took a wrong turn, came to a stop, and a utility truck hit us from behind. And the impact hit us so hard that it threw our vehicle off into the center median. The impact had snapped my driver's seat from the mounts that attach it to the car. My son was ultimately left unresponsive and unconscious.

I had tried calling his name. He wasn't responding. His lips were blue. Sternal rubs weren't working. On first sight, I thought, "My son is dead." That was my first thought that went through my head. I said, "This can't be happening. My son is dead." Emotionally, I don't care how long you've been in the healthcare field, or any other field for that matter that deals with a lot of trauma. You will never be prepared when it's your own kid. Once we got him loaded into the ambulance and it was a trauma activation to Sierra Vista, at one point, they had to bag him because his oxygen saturation levels dropped to 74%.

I didn't know how to process it. I didn't know what to do next. I'm so used to running in and helping others and knowing what to do, but when it's your own kid, you have no clue. You have no clue how to respond to it. 5 to 10 hours later, I was able to finally relax and know that my son was gonna be okay. He woke up and, you know, all of his functions started to return, and he was able to respond to us.

Problem was the memory of the accident continued and I suppressed it. I bottled it up. When I was in the military, I did have some PTSD there as well, but I started noticing some of the similar symptoms and signs that I was going through then, and I know well enough that, you know, not doing anything about it, it never ends well. Unfortunately, I did not have the mental tools to deal with what I was dealing with. Lucky for me, Adventist Health has Thriveworks. I took that first step. I called Thriveworks and I haven't looked back since.

We see trauma all the time, but the fact that Adventist Health is willing to provide that for us is very huge and it shows a lot of sincerity to our families and keeping us well 'cause, you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't understand that we see a lot of really bad things, and just the fact that we have the opportunity or option to take advantage of something like this is pretty amazing. And you have your options between Zoom, you can call and just do over the phone, or you can do in-person if the therapist is close enough, and they've given me a lot of different perspectives, different ways to look at the accident, different techniques I can use to apply to my daily life so that I'm not an emotional mess and I can function. It'll help you get through something difficult 'cause it did with me. He is now seven. He loves jiu-jitsu. Very high energy. Wants to help do everything now, which I'm all for it. Chores are. Go ahead, son. You can have 'em all.

I'm doing a lot better now. I'm gonna continue with therapy, and Thriveworks does really work.