Baby Stopped Breathing After Hit by Softball – Few Weeks Later, a Miracle Happened

For the Hovenga family, it was nothing short of a miracle when their precious two-month old daughter suddenly woke up from a coma and started breathing on her own after a softball injury fractured her skull on May 2 and left her in a coma for weeks.

A Softball Accident

While watching her father play in an intense match, almost a hundred miles northeast of Des Moines, little McKenna was suddenly struck in the head by a softball, after which she stopped breathing

On May 2, Kassy took her two-month-old baby to a softball game where she became victim to a horrendous accident that almost took her life.

Horrified parents and onlookers called an ambulance but even the nearest hospital was at least half an hour away. McKenna had lost consciousness and she needed urgent medical care, or she could lose her life. Paramedics were sent through a helicopter and the injured infant was airlifted to the closest medical center.

By the time McKenna was rushed into the emergency room of St Mary’s Hospital, she had already gone into a coma and was unable to breathe on her own. Doctors who attended to the infant were horrified when they found out that the dangerous softball had fractured her fragile skull, causing hemorrhages and seizures.

A Miraculous Recovery

McKenna was admitted into the hospital and put on breathing tube to keep her alive. The weeks following the terrible accident were extremely hard for McKenna’s parents, Kassy and Lee, who were hoping and praying for a miracle that could turn their daughter’ condition around for the better. Last Thursday was a tough day for the family after McKenna was taken off her breathing tube.

The parents didn’t know if their precious baby would be able to breath without the oxygen tube. At first, McKenna’s oxygen level dropped, as she struggled to breathe through her own lungs. The infant was injected with steroids and doctors used an endoscope to examine her airways to ensure that there wasn’t any blockage.

After struggling for a while, a miracle happened: McKenna suddenly woke up and started breathing on her own. The infant’s aunt, Laura Heise, who created a Facebook page for her beloved niece called ‘Healing for McKenna’, to keep everyone updated with the baby’s condition, announced to all the followers that the little girl had started breathing on her own.

Well-wishers rushed to congratulate Heise and send positive messages wishing for Mckenna’s speedy recovery

Getting Back Their Daughter

In her emotional Facebook post, Heise said that Mckenna has been taken off the breathing tube and doctors are no longer administering any steroid to help her breathe. The two-month old was able to rest comfortably for the first time after being taken off the ventilator and her family is over the moon to see their little princess recovering so quickly.

Heise added in her post that the family had initially thought that the breathing difficulty was due to the brain injury caused by the accident but it wasn’t the case. The doctors operated on Mckenna’s brain to stop the bleeding, and after the successful surgery, the 2-month-old was no longer suffering from seizures.

The family went through a roller coaster of emotions after Mckenna started breathing on her own, and the parents shed tears of happiness and relief knowing that the worst was now behind them.

Best Mother’s Day Present

McKenna has also received financial support from YouCaring, a crowdfunding page which raised almost $100,000 to help the family afford the best medical care for McKenna, who is still in Mayo Clinic’s St. Mary’s Hospital, Minnesota under the care of a team of pediatricians. McKenna’s physicians say that it may take another few weeks for her to heal from the skull fracture, and until then, she will stay in intensive care and be put under medication for faster recovery.

According to a Facebook post, doctors have been able to identify two areas of McKenna’s brain which have been damaged due to internal bleeding and they fear that the accident may affect her physical development and motor skills when she grows up. On May 13, Kassy received the best Mother’s Day present she could have asked for after being allowed to hold her baby daughter for the first time since the accident. The emotional mum revealed that McKenna is their miracle child since the couple had been struggling to conceive for years before their little princess came into the world.