Boy's recovery from ATV accident injuries considered a miracle
July 21st, 2009 by Kurt Niland
A 17-year-old Oklahoma boy who was critically injured in an ATV accident in 2005 is considered a walking miracle by everyone who knows him and has worked with him to recover from his injuries over the years. Aaron Bullock sustained a traumatic brain injury after hitting his head in the accident. He spent more than two months in a coma at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City. When Bullock emerged from the coma, doctors weren’t optimistic about his recovery.
Following the advice of his doctors, Bullock’s parents moved him to the Children’s Center in Bethany, Oklahoma, a non-profit pediatric hospital. Bullock would spend the next two years of his life at the center, relearning the most basic functions of living – walking, talking, eating. The hospital staff persisted in treating Bullock, even though he showed no signs of improvement for 6 months.
Suddenly, the spark of life that people recognized as Bullock, the boy they remembered, began to emerge. Rehab workers had engaged Bullock in a slew of therapeutic exercises with little to no result, but musical therapy proved different.
According to Tami Crawford, a recreational therapist at the Children’s Center, following the patient’s leads and customizing therapy sessions is essential to recovery.
“It’s all about thinking outside the box – working with the patients themselves about what they want and can actually do,” she told The Oklahoman.
Bullock enthusiastically participated in his musical therapy sessions and began singing before he recovered his ability to talk.
Megan Long, a music therapist who worked with Bullock, said that music rehabilitates the whole brain. “Music is a full-brain function. If you have brain damage in one part of the brain, we can still use music to retrain that other side of the brain because music appears all over the place,” she told The Oklahoman.
“If the language portion of your brain is damaged you may lose the language but with music, you could still sing,” Long explained.
Bullock moved back home after living at the Children’s Center for two years, but he was determined to give back to the hospital that helped him so much. Now an Eagle Scout and a junior in high school, Bullock works on improving playgrounds at the Children’s Center and elsewhere – civic duties that give him a vast amount of joy. He also completed a two-mile Walk to Cure Diabetes course with his parents.
The injuries Bullock received in the ATV accident years ago still continue to shape his life – his left arm is numb and rigid and he has problems walking — but the young man is determined they won’t hold him back.