{"id":7489,"date":"2019-05-16T15:36:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T05:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=7489"},"modified":"2019-05-23T14:43:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T04:43:27","slug":"7489","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/7489\/","title":{"rendered":"Brave Sam\u2019s long road back after the accident that left him quadriplegic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It took all the concentration he could muster, but the first words Sam Farnsworth chose to \u201ctype\u201d with his eyes since being left a quadriplegic in a car accident, was; \u201cI love you Mum\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The 11-year-old was travelling home from school with his twin brother, when the car his mum was driving was hit head-on by another vehicle.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Picture: Tony Gough<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His dad, Neil, was among the first on the scene on February 13, and he pulled the body of his lifeless boy from the wreck on Point Leo Rd in Red Hill.<\/p>\n

After being resuscitated at the road side, Sam was flown to the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

His twin, Luke, suffered sprained ankles and bruising in the crash. His mum, Lisa, still has her legs in moon boots after shattering her ankles.<\/p>\n

With his injured family spread across three hospitals, Mr Farnsworth was told by RCH Director of Trauma Services, Associate Professor Warwick Teague that Sam may not survive.<\/p>\n

If he did, it was unclear if the brain damage was too severe and he would be left \u201clocked in\u201d his own body.<\/p>\n

The grade six student\u2019s spinal cord had been dramatically stretched by the force of the collision, severing all movement from below his nose. The lap-sash seat belt came across Sam\u2019s neck during the impact of the crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t clear at the start if he was brain dead, and if this was a life worth recovering to,\u201d Associate Prof Teague said. \u201cOnce we started getting some evidence of movement, and that there was life behind the eyes, Sam has been wonderfully progressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three months on, including nine weeks in intensive care, it has been a steady mission by the allied health, medical and nursing teams to harness Sam\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to wish a lot for him, but now I just want him to talk,\u201d Mr Farnsworth said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe keep telling him we want better for you than this, you want better than this for yourself, so you need to keep trying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam now mouths \u201cthank you\u201d and \u201cbye\u201d. He can squeeze his right hand and lift his left foot. He uses eye-tracking technology to say single words via a computer.<\/p>\n

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Picture: Tony Gough<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSam has these little pockets of movement that we don\u2019t know if that\u2019s going to be the beginning of more movement,\u201d Associate Prof Teague said. \u201cWe will keep providing therapy to keep getting out of him whatever we can.<\/p>\n

\u201cSam has shown us that he will take any opportunity to show progress and he\u2019ll give it a go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily for the family of seven, as they continue nursing their own physical and emotional wounds, they draw strength from Sam and the fact he rarely stops smiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe resilience, strength and determination he has shown post accident is something I didn\u2019t know he had,\u201d Mrs Farnsworth said.<\/p>\n

Words by Brigid O’Connell (Herald Sun), photos by Tony Gough<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It took all the concentration he could muster, but the first words Sam Farnsworth chose to \u201ctype\u201d with his eyes since being left a quadriplegic in a car accident, was; \u201cI love you Mum\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":7493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7489","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\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7489"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7499,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7489\/revisions\/7499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}