{"id":10751,"date":"2026-01-30T11:33:54","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=10751"},"modified":"2026-01-30T11:35:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T00:35:02","slug":"tommy-the-fearless-farm-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/tommy-the-fearless-farm-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy the fearless farm boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eight-year-old Tommy is a country kid through and through. Growing up on a sheep and potato farm in Western Victoria, he loves helping out, especially unloading trucks with his Grandpa and being in the tractor with Dad. .
\nWhile Tommy\u2019s mum, Katherine, was checking lambing ewes with two of his siblings, Tommy had a run-in with a piece of machinery in the shed. \u201cI\u2019ll never forget getting that call,\u201d Katherine recalls. \u201cHe remembered my mobile number even with nine broken bones in his feet, he\u2019s just amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tommy was taken to the local hospital in Ballarat, but confusingly, initial X-rays didn\u2019t show any breaks. But as his feet swelled rapidly, the doctor still suspected something serious. A CT scan confirmed multiple fractures, and The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital (RCH) wanted to see him straight away.
\nWith no ambulance available, Katherine\u2019s aunt, luckily an experienced paediatric emergency nurse, drove them to Melbourne. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t give him strong pain relief because we couldn\u2019t monitor him in the car,\u201d Katherine says. \u201cSo they gave him Panadol and Nurofen, put his feet in half casts, and we drove through the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They arrived at the RCH just after midnight. The orthopaedic team assessed Tommy and admitted him to Platypus Ward, where he would spend nearly three weeks.<\/p>\n

Tommy\u2019s injuries were complex. \u201cThe first 48 hours were critical,\u201d Katherine explains. \u201cThey monitored his toes every hour to make sure blood was still flowing.\u201d His first surgery came on Sunday, when the plastics team cleaned the wound on his right foot. Over the following weeks, Tommy underwent several procedures, including a skin graft and intricate repairs to the talus bone in his left foot, a bone Tommy\u2019s surgeons described as \u201ccrushed like an eggshell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Despite the pain and swelling, Tommy stayed upbeat. He loved watching fireworks from his window during the Melbourne Royal Show and tracking passing planes on his iPad. \u201cNurse Emma even stayed back after her shift to watch fireworks with him,\u201d Katherine says. \u201cIt was beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katherine promised him, \u201cTommy mate, next year when your feet are feeling better, we\u2019re going to come back and go to the Show, and you can go on those rides instead of watching out the window.\u201d Tommy\u2019s response melted her heart: \u201cCan we come back and stay at this hospital when we go there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Going home was daunting. Their 150-year-old farmhouse certainly wasn\u2019t wheelchair-friendly, so Katherine and Tommy stayed in worker accommodation for several weeks. But Tommy wasted no time getting back to farm life, feeding farm animals from his wheelchair and even watching a bore being drilled in the paddock.<\/p>\n

His determination shone through.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When he had his casts off, the doctors had said that \u201ckids are often anxious about putting their feet down after these kinds of injuries, but Tommy said to me, \u2018Mum, can I stand up?\u2019 Then, \u2018Can I try taking a step?\u2019 and in a matter of seconds, less than 36 hours after his casts came off, he was walking in his orthotics,\u201d Katherine says.<\/p>\n

Tommy never complained or said he wished the accident hadn\u2019t happened. \u201cHe never said, \u2018I can\u2019t do it because of my feet.\u2019 He just had a crack at everything,\u201d Katherine says. From riding a modified bike his dad constructed to competing in every event at his school athletics carnival (200 metres, long jump, shot put and more) Tommy tackled it all with a grin.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Fifteen months on, Tommy has shed his knee-length orthotics and now uses only a small insert in one shoe. He\u2019s excited for the next stage: moving to a soft orthotic that will let him bend his left foot. \u201cHe\u2019s still doing everything he wants to do,\u201d Katherine says proudly. \u201cHe\u2019s strong, motivated and never lets anything hold him back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not wanting to put too much pressure on him as the fifth generation on the farm, Katherine and his dad, Ben, are leaving it up to Tommy if he\u2019d like to follow in the family business, but based on this recent homework, we think it\u2019s pretty likely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An accident left then six-year-old Tommy with nine broken bones in his feet, but he never let that hold him back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7062,"featured_media":10762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[26961,26962,26958],"class_list":["post-10751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news","tag-featured","tag-news","tag-patient-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7062"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10751"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10761,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10751\/revisions\/10761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}