“At Children’s Specialized the therapists always told him, ‘the best therapy is to play,’ so as soon as he could, he did,” said Ellis. “They have been nothing short of amazing.”
One Step at a Time – William Used His Inner Strength to Reach His Rehab Goals and Now He Runs Triathlons
A child’s life can change within a moment’s notice; when a seemingly harmless act turns fatal. For one young boy it was a leisurely walk on the morning of June 6, 2008 that changed everything. Ten year old William Powers had just taken his older sister to the bus, something he decided to do for the first time on the narrow quiet street in his hometown of Larchmont, New York; when a teenage driver went around the parked bus and hit him. They were later found to be under the influence of alcohol, and the impact to his fourth grade frame left him with a series of traumatic injuries and a devastated family looking for answers.
Immediately following the accident, Ellis and Jeff Powers waited as their son was stabilized at Sound Shore Medical Center. Soon after, he was transferred to Westchester Medical Maria Fereri Children’s Hospital where he was given an MRI to check for internal injuries. Physicians discovered that the collision left William’s right tibia broken, severed his left femur and caused a significant amount of damage to his brain. His body; tired, weak and doing its best to recover from all it had been through went into a coma for four days. While a patient at Westchester Medical Center Maria Fereri Children’s Hospital, William was able to have his family anxiously wait by his side while receiving twenty-four hour care.
William’s hospital room was kept dim and quiet, until the family decided to liven it up with some of his favorite music.
“His physician didn’t think William was going to make it,” said his mother, Ellis. “The longer someone is in a coma the harder it is for them to wake up from it.”
William’s fighting spirit changed all that when he awoke from the coma four days later; but the ten year old was by no means out of the woods. A week passed before William’s care was turned over to the expertise of the doctors, nurses, and therapists at PSE&G Children’s Specialized Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. There, William remained an inpatient and the director of the Brain Injury Program, Dr. Krishan Yalamanchi focused on reaching William to his fullest potential.
“He came to me ten days after his injury and had problems in both physical and cognitive aspects,” Yalamanchi explained. Due to his fractured legs William was unable to bare any weight.
“He needed assistance with daily activities, and cognitively his attention span and memory were poor,” Yalamanchi said.
The determined patient had a packed schedule all day long of various physical and occupational therapy exercises when it came to gaining back his mobility, but William enjoyed aquatics therapy best. The pool was the easiest way for him to exercise and retrain his muscles while doing something every child at that age loved to do. He had occupational therapy with Jackie Borrone and Tina Gawri as well as recreational therapy with Christina Dellibovi and Jamie Richards.
Two of William’s therapists Dellibovi and Gawri found him a pleasure to work with and “fast” in multiple instances, with a ball in his hands and information he wanted to learn. “Will was quite the basketball star and was very inquisitive,” Dellibovi said. “He always asked great questions.”
The success of the continued treatments made for a day the Powers’ family would never forget, when William, after such a horrifying accident, and so many weeks of uncertainty was able to walk again—first with a walker, then crutches until finally and triumphantly, on his own. Once home from the hospital, William had sessions of outpatient physical therapy several times a week and worked with an occupational therapist. Unable to return to school, William also had a tutor help him with school work for the rest of that year.
Shortly after the accident, the driven and determined young man was ready to move forward and prepared for more physical challenges. William loved swimming and running cross country and is considered an elite athlete in both skills. Three months after the accident, with the help of his continuous therapies, William dove headfirst into the pool, and amazingly ran a Children’s Triathlon the following year where he placed third. He has run in two more consecutively; earning second and first place.
“At Children’s Specialized the therapists always told him, ‘the best therapy is to play,’ so as soon as he could, he did,” said Ellis. “They have been nothing short of amazing.”
The Powers’ family credits the kindness, compassion, care and diligence of everyone at Children’s Specialized Hospital for the “miracle” of a recovery their son was able to make. The last five years have meant making sacrifices and compensating for things his friends and peers couldn’t and wouldn’t understand.
William found himself stuck on the first floor of his school isolated from his other friends all because he couldn’t do his school’s stairs. He fights fatigue and slight vision problems due to his traumatic brain injury and suffers from early onset severs disease; a bone disorder that results from painful inflammation of the growth plate in the heel. That long list of repercussions gives him of all people plenty of reasons to be frustrated.
Instead, William, now fourteen, working through his challenges with a strong, inner drive to succeed; getting the most out of every day is the epitome of the word powerhouse!