On a Friday in March, Gus Deterding, 9, returned home from school, feeling excited for a camping trip with his dad. As Gus loaded the camping gear in his arms to take to their truck, he walked across the icy driveway and slipped and fell face-first on an arrow.
“He came in after pulling the arrow out, and he was pretty worked up and bleeding quite a bit,” mom Abby Deterding, 40, of Alexandria, Minnesota, tells TODAY.com. “He said, ‘I fell and this arrow went up my nose.’”
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At first, Deterding and her husband, Dave, thought he only needed stitches for a cut on the crease of his nose. But after two trips to Children’s Minnesota hospital, the family learned that the arrow had traveled into his brain, stopping a little more than two centimeters from exiting his skull. It missed damaging his carotid artery, jugular vein and didn’t injure the brain tissue responsible for controlling movement and breathing which it passed through.
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“It took my breath away. I couldn’t believe it,” Deterding says. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s a miracle from God.”
Preparing for a camping trip ends with an accident
As soon as Gus returned from school on March 21, he started getting ready for the trip and filled his arms with as much camping and hunting equipment as he could juggle.
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“Gus is our kid that loves to be such a helper,” Deterding says.
After he slipped and fell onto the arrow, Gus pulled it from his face and went inside to tell his parents what happened. Deterding immediately knew something was wrong by how panicked Gus acted.
“He was presenting very scared obviously, and saying, ‘Am I dying? I don’t want to leave you,’” she recalls. “We were like, ‘OK, no. It’s just a lot of blood. So, it looks worse, but you’re not (dying). We’re going to get stitches and everything will be great.’”
The family went to the local emergency room, where doctors ordered CT scans of the front of Gus’ face. The doctor noticed a “bubble” in the brain and some broken sinus bones. By this point, Gus started vomiting because he was bleeding so much and swallowing it. The local doctor thought Gus should visit Children’s Minnesota for care.
“We were trying to stay as calm as we could,” Deterding says.
Deterding and Gus took a helicopter to the hospital, where he received stitches. After about three hours of observation, Gus seemed healthy.
“He was presenting (normally), talking. His vision was good. He wasn’t vomiting,” Deterding says. “Doctors thought (the injury) was superficial.”
Doctors discharged him, and the family returned home. Then, a day and a half later, Gus complained of a terrible headache.
“He was in a lot of pain,” Deterding says. “He had vomited a few times.”
They returned to Children’s Minnesota.
Doctors there ordered a full head CT scan and detected a “little brain bleed,” and they admitted Gus to the pediatric intensive care unit. His symptoms caused doctors to worry that the boy might have meningitis, an infection of the brain’s fluids and membranes, so they began treating him with IV antibiotics. The next day, Gus also underwent an MRI. That’s when they saw how far the arrow had traveled into Gus’ brain.
“I thought, ‘How is this boy even alive, let alone not with serious neurological injury?’” Dr. Ken Maslonka, medical director at Children’s Minnesota hospital in Minneapolis, tells TODAY.com.
Maslonka says he’s been practicing for 28 years at the hospital and cannot recall seeing anything like “a penetrating arrow traveling through the entire brain and almost exiting the skull,” without causing any damage.
“In Gus’s case, that arrow path was, at a minimum, quite fortunate to not cause serious permanent injury or death,” Maslonka says. “I might choose to believe that there was spiritual guidance to that arrow, and God’s hand protected that sweet boy.”
His parents agree.
“God was guiding that arrow,” Deterding said. “It missed all the (important) things.”
For six days, Gus remained in the hospital receiving IV antibiotics and being observed. Doctors also placed him on medications to prevent seizures as a precautionary measure. Toward the end of his stay, his mom noticed he was feeling better.
“The last few days we were there you could tell he was feeling more like himself,” she says. “He was wanting to eat more.”
Gus had a PICC line to receive IV antibiotics at home before they returned to the hospital for another scan a few weeks later. After that, he returned to school, and then six weeks later, he had a follow-up MRI.
The neurosurgeon had good news. Gus no longer needed any more scans of his brain.
“He was like, ‘Dude, you are a legend in my world … you can go back to all your normal activities, and you are as if you were before this accident,’” Deterding says.
‘Wants to be normal’
As soon as he could, Gus returned to hanging out with his friends and playing sports. He’s on a baseball team, but also loves hockey, football and golf. This summer, he’s been tubing on the lake by his house acting “like a little daredevil.” He’s not interested in seeing any bows and arrows anytime soon and “wants to be normal.”
“He doesn’t like the attention,” Deterding says. “He doesn’t like to talk about it. It’s bringing up trauma.”
Deterding says the family wanted to share their story because it’s a spot of “good news.” They still feel overwhelmed by all the love and support they received from their community, friends and family.
“Everybody in the school wrote him a sweet little note,” Deterding says. “That was really cool. We have a really amazing community.”
Deterding says Gus’ story is a modern “miracle.”
“It’s too good not to share,” she says. “It’s such a good story of God’s grace and how good He is. And we’re blessed, truly.”
This article is from
TODAY.com
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