By CHRISTY HENDRICKS
Leader staff writer
Last November, Karissa Jackson of Beebe thought she would lose her son after the vehicle she was driving was struck by a drunk driver in White County. That driver is now in prison for multiple drunk driving charges.
Her son, Christian, 10 at the time, was airlifted from the El Paso accident to Arkansas Children’s Hospital. He was not expected to survive the flight.
Karissa, her daughter and another passenger suffered minor injuries and walked away from the accident.
The impact shattered Christian’s skull, exposing his brain. He underwent emergency surgery at ACH to stop the bleeding and remove debris from his wound. Surgeons removed more than half his skull to allow for swelling.
Christian’s neurosurgeon told his mother that despite his unstable vital signs, the surgery could save his life, but he would not lead a normal life if he survived.
“I now know miracles happen,” Karissa says. “On the way to ACH that night, I called my friend Gayle and had her start a prayer chain. I knew that was the only way my son could make it. When I saw him in the car, with his open skull fracture, I knew he was dead.”
“Christian’s first neurosurgeon was a blessing,” Karissa says of Dr. Ian Johnson. Despite Christian’s failing vital signs, Dr. Johnson did the emergency surgery. “Another doctor would have probably let him go. There is probably not another neurosurgeon that would ever do such a thing.”
Christian was in a coma for two weeks after the accident, but he showed slight movement in his limbs and his pupils began to react to light. His doctors were impressed, calling it miraculous.
After two months at ACH, he could say a couple words and eat after having been on a feeding tube for more than a month. He began to walk.
He has survived the odds, making remarkable progress thanks to his family, doctors and the people at Timber Ridge Neuro Restorative Ranch in Benton.
Although he sometimes has trouble finding the right words, he can now speak in full sentences.
“Christian is still making great strides toward a full recovery,” his mother said. “I guess we won’t really know until the progress stops. He has come a long way, but at the same time has a long way to go.”
Christian is getting physical and speech therapy, according to his mother.
“He will continue to get those therapies until he no longer needs them,” she said. “He has at least one more surgery and that will be to put in a prosthetic skull.”
Doctors are expanding skin that’s still left on his head, according to his mother. The expander will give him enough skin to cover the prosthetic skull. “The big surgery is going to be in approximately five months.”
“They (Christian’s doctors) don’t really say what his recovery can be, and I don’t ask because I know they don’t really know,” Karissa said. “They can speculate but that’s about all. In the hospital, they told me he may never speak again, but he is.”
Dr. Barbera Honnebier is Christian’s plastics/reconstructive surgeon. The Amsterdam-born doctor specializes in pediatric and adult plastic and reconstructive surgery.
“She has been amazing,” Karissa said.
Christian will have a new neurosurgeon, Dr. Gregory W. Albert.
The drunk driver who hit the Jackson family, Tracy Norman, attempted to leave the scene of the accident, according to witnesses, but was pulled from his truck by a bystander.
“He crossed the center line,” Karissa said. “I swerved, but not enough. All the kids and myself were wearing our seat belts.”
“I went to every court date and even testified against him,” Karissa says of Norman. “After I told the court what happened to Christian and how our lives had changed from what this man did, he got in front of the court and told the judge that it was a bad day, he was having woman troubles.
“The judge told him flat out, ‘I don’t know how to keep you from doing this again besides you killing yourself doing it, and, quite frankly, I hope you do so,’” according to Karissa.
Norman has been convicted of nine felony DWIs, according to www.adc.arkansas.gov.
He is serving a six-year sentence for a DWI 4 – a felony, and 20 years for first-degree battery at the Cummins Unit in Grady. To be charged with a felony DWI, a driver will have had three misdemeanor DWIs before the fourth, pushing Norman’s total to 12 DWIs.
Norman was driving on a suspended license at the time of the November accident involving the Jackson family.
According to a recent report, 14,417 Arkansans are five-time DWI offenders or driving under the influence of drugs according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report to Congress. In addition, there are 34,554 three-time offenders in the state. The report was released in May.
In 2009, there were 585 traffic fatalities in Arkansas, with 168, or 29 percent, of those involving a driver with a blood alcohol content of the legal limit of .08 or higher.
But these numbers are just for fatalities. There are also survivors of drunk or impaired drivers whose lives are changed forever.
Christian’s speech isn’t what it was before the accident, according to Karissa.
Christian and his sister Cydney lost their father, Terry, a month before the accident.
“He does miss his dad terribly. An amazing thing is that Christian is still himself. He has some deficits, and he even knows those deficits. He knows that he used to be able to do things he can’t do now. He does get frustrated, who wouldn’t, but he also keeps going.”
Karissa says her family’s finances have been stretched thin. “We make it,” she says, “but just barely.
“I suppose it’s somewhat tougher than it would have been had it not happened with us having to go to all the doctors visits,” she explained. But with the economy the way it is, it’s tough all over.”
“I can’t really say the accident has discouraged me,” Karissa said. “I went back to nursing school shortly after Terry (Christian’s father) died. And after the wreck, I was somehow able to finish what was left of my last semester of nursing school.
“I know I would not have been able to do that, had it not been for my family, but definitely had it not been for my fellow nursing students.
“Not only did they bring me dinner every night, Christian was in ICU, but they helped me to study,” she said of her classmates. “They were there for me when I needed them the most. Those girls and guys were my rock. That is something I will never be able to repay.”
Christian’s sister has been very supportive of her brother. “She saw him that night, and she knew it was really bad,” Karissa said. “She told my mom that ‘some of bubby’s brains flew on me.’”
“She has been great about it though,” Karissa says. Cydney has had some regression since the accident, being terrified to ride in a car at first and having to have pillows and things in the car to protect her.
“She didn’t like to be in a room by herself,” Karissa said. “She definitely had to have some abandonment problems, losing her father and with me being gone for two months at the hospital with Christian.
“She exaggerates and tells fibs. She remembers being told Terry passed away and is still struggling with that,” Karissa says.
“She can’t wrap her little mind about why,” her mother said.
“She will just ask why. Her heart is broken about it, and so is Christian’s.”
A fund has been set up at Centennial Bank in the name of Karissa Jackson for Christian Jackson.
