Complex surgery restores boy's use of his right arm

[Music playing]

[Text on screen: Dothan, Alabama]

Sebastian Heersink: I thought, oh my god, I don't know what has happened.

[Text on screen: Sebastian Heersink
Byron's Father]

Sebastian Heersink: But this is something awful, terrible.

Emily Heersink: I do remember our daughter and son were playing.

[Text on screen: Emily Heersink
Byron's Mother]

Emily Heersink: I left, house was happy. I came back, house was empty. There was blood everywhere.

[Text on screen: Byron Heersink was 6 when he crashed through a window at their Southern Alabama home in 2021.]

Sebastian Heersink: Around the corner comes our son who has a white shirt on. And seeing he has this big red patch on his shirt, and I look. And by the time I look, his entire shirt was dark red. So, hopefully, we can get him stabilized and put him on a helicopter to Birmingham. So, that in my mind went from, "this is a very bad situation to, I mean, we can't even fix it here? Holy."

Emily Heersink: We didn't talk about him dying, but we did talk about maybe he wouldn't have that arm. And at the time, I mean as long as he survived, I felt like that's okay, we can deal with... I mean, that'll be fine. And then he had his life-saving surgery that night to repair his artery.

[Text on screen: Surgeons in Alabama stabilized Byron, but he had no use of his right arm.]

Sebastian Heersink: If this is your kid, what do you do? And asked about seven different people from different phases, a friend who does hand transplants and neurosurgeons. And remarkably, we said, "All right, please give me three names, and that way we could look at all these different people." And every single list had a variety of names, but every single list had Dr. Moore on it.

[Text on screen:
Amy Moore, MD
Chair of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Amy Moore, MD: When I saw Byron, and I could tell on his exam where he was tender and the pain that he was in. That combination with lack of function, I believed I could help. The work that Byron needed was on a high level of complexity. Because it was a previously operated field, because the glass had transected multiple structures, because he had had the blood vessels reconstructed, I was going into tiger country. And the time, the tedious part of the procedure, and also the experience of knowing I can do this despite how hard it is. I think, for Byron's sake, it is one of the most complex, high-risk, great reward procedures that I do.

Emily Heersink: Her surgical plan sounded much more hopeful and comprehensive than other surgeons we had talked to.

[Text on screen: Byron Heersink
Patient]

Byron Heersink: She's really great, and she'll always check on you, and she's really kind.

Dr. Moore: I really focus on that relationship with my patient, with the family, because it also gives me back my joy and why I went into medicine in the first place.

Emily Heersink: But it could've gone in a really, really horrible, tragic way and it didn't.

Sebastian Heersink: To go from there to where we are today is just incredible.

Dr. Moore: To actually see the fingers on the piano moving with the dexterity that I know he didn't have before surgery. And that experience, and in the time of even seeing him want to show me and be so proud of what he's gotten back, I think there's nothing better. There's nothing better that you could ask for me to see him doing what he loves to do.

Emily Heersink: I'm just grateful, it has deepened my gratitude for our health and well-being every day. Having had a child who came so close to dying, it gives me a perspective that I lacked before this.

Sebastian Heersink: So grateful to be sitting here today, saying our son is strong, healthy, incredible person. And I think by going through the process, it's just sharpened his character and made him just a really wonderful kid.

[Text on screen: Ohio State Health & Discovery
For more information, visit:
health.osu.edu]

[Music fades]