Lydia Wettstein, 16, recounts the details of Aug. 25, when her younger brother Hank, 14, was involved in a near-fatal ATV accident outside Eureka.
D. Jack Alkire
EUREKA -- As fall approached and deer hunting season dawned, 14-year-old Hank Wettstein set a personal goal: to hunt six deer. He's been deer hunting every year for half of his young life, he said.
Growing up on a farm in Secor, Hank loves to spend time outside with his father, uncles and younger brother, Charlie, doing all kinds of "country boy" things like fishing, hunting, hiking and riding all-terrain vehicles, said his mother, Stephanie Wettstein.
He is especially well-loved by his football team, the Eureka Hornets.
His hunting plans were interrupted this year, though, because on Aug. 25, he was riding an ATV at his uncle's farm with Charlie and younger cousin Lincoln, both 10, and he had a catastrophic accident, causing severe head injuries.
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It was so bad, in fact, that when Lincoln ran to get help from their dads, Hank asked Charlie to pray for him, because he knew he was on death's door, his mother said.
"He said (to Charlie), 'I'm not going to make it. Pray for me,'" she told The Pantagraph in September.
Hank was rushed to OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, where he received intensive inpatient care for around a month, including breathing and feeding tubes. He was then taken to Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago for extensive rehabilitation, where he would relearn how to stand, walk, hold playing cards, feed himself and just about every skill he'd learned in his short 14 years.
And yet, despite the mountain of obstacles he's faced, including multiple surgeries to reconstruct parts of his face and skull, and the long path to recovery ahead of him, Hank has progressed enough that he was able to go to school on Friday, Dec. 13, Stephanie Wettstein said.
"He's actually going to school (on Friday) for a couple hours for the first time," she said.
For the first time since this past August, Hank sat with his cousin Kyla Coy, 15, to do homework at Eureka High School, just like a normal student.
Rebuilding, rehabbing
Before he was ready for Shirley Ryan AbilityLab this fall, Hank's injuries required his skull to be rebuilt, said Karen Viola, a pediatric nurse practitioner at Shirley Ryan who has been administering Hank's therapy plan.
Viola holds a doctorate in pediatric primary care and has been with Shirley Ryan for seven and a half years.
In an email with The Pantagraph, Viola outlined the severity of Hank's injuries and his journey in recovery.
He experienced a "polytrauma ... (including) a traumatic brain injury, a spinal cord injury, multiple cranial fractures, a fracture of his lower jaw (mandible), and he experienced a respiratory failure which required placement of a tracheostomy tube," Viola said.
Those injuries to his face and jaw "and subsequent reconstruction made it very difficult for him to open his mouth and eat," she said. "He had facial nerve palsy, which also complicated his eating and speaking. The spinal cord injury caused generalized weakness and decreased strength of his arms and legs as well as coordination issues.
"He was unable to walk or bear weight to stand, and his fine motor skills were greatly impacted, affecting his ability to use his hands properly."
Every patient is different, Viola said, making it hard to predict how much and how well they will recover from such injuries.
"It takes time, which is an important factor -- time and rehabilitation," she said. "When we have patients who present in a similar way as Hank, we are clear from the beginning that time and therapies will be crucial. There is really a sense of riding the wave. Healing is not linear."
Therapies are administered by a team of interdisciplinary specialists from just about every medical field: physical, occupational and speech therapists, dietitians, pharmacists, social workers, psychotherapists, respiratory specialists and chaplains, Viola said.
"Goals are set within each discipline," she said. "(Hank's) commitment to therapies and hard work are helping him reach specific goals."
So far, Hank has not only been meeting expectations, but blowing past them, said Stephanie Wettstein.
"He is crushing his goals every week," she said.
Sticking together
On the day of Hank's accident, while Charlie prayed with his injured brother, their mother and sisters, 16-year-old Lydia and 12-year-old Lucy, were miles away, relaxing at home. Despite 21st century communication technology, word of Hank's accident was slow getting to the family.
In mid-November, the siblings and their mother sat around a table at their grandparents' house in Eureka and recounted that harrowing day.
"My phone was off because it was dead, which like, never happens," Stephanie Wettstein said.
"I was napping," added Lydia, the oldest of the four Wettstein kids.
Lucy was the only one alert and with a working phone: "My cousin kept calling me. She was like, 'Lucy, answer the dang phone!'" the 12-year-old said.
Finally, Lucy's cousin told her Hank had been in an accident, and Lucy relayed the news to her mom and older sister. But Lydia was skeptical at first, believing her sister was overplaying the severity of it all.
"Lucy told me there was an -- Hank got into an accident," Lydia said. "And I just thought he, like, broke his leg. I didn't realize how, like, extreme it was ... (Lucy's) just dramatic. And so when she told me that he was in an accident and it was horrible, I was like, 'OK. It's from (Lucy), she's dramatic all the time."
But when Lydia saw their mother's reaction to the situation, she realized things were not good.
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"She knew that it was more serious ... when I was like, 'Do you want to go somewhere else? Do you not want to be home by yourself tonight?' That kind of stuff," Stephanie Wettstein said. "And she started to put things together."
Lydia packed a bag and stayed at her boyfriend's home. "I didn't go home for, like, a solid two weeks after the accident," she said.
Lydia and Charlie needed some time before they were ready to see Hank in the hospital, but Lucy wanted to see him right away.
"She was the first one who wanted to see him," Stephanie Wettstein said. "They (Lydia and Charlie) weren't quite ready yet. It took them a bit longer, but (Lucy) just, like, needed to see him and physically put her eyes on him and know that he was there and he was OK."
The 12-year-old explained that she needed to know, "How did he look like? What all could he do? Could he do anything?"
Eventually, the visitors and support extended beyond the close-knit family, and people from Eureka, El Paso and Roanoke, where the family attends church, began sending their well-wishes to Hank and his family.
"It's just, kind of been the whole Woodford County, honestly, just supporting us," Lydia said.
Hank even received visits from some of his former football opponents.
"I know kids from other schools like Washington and Olympia and El Paso from sports," Hank said. "And they sent me stuff in the hospital."
The road ahead
Hank and his mother have been staying at the Ronald McDonald House while he attends therapy during the day at Shirley Ryan. Hank's dad, Ed, has stayed home to work and take care of the other kids.
The Wettstein family received an early Christmas present this year when Hank was able to come home on Halloween for the first time since the accident. Since then, Hank and Stephanie Wettstein have continued to come home on weekends while staying in Chicago during the week for therapy.
"It was hard to keep it a surprise," Stephanie Wettstein said, "because, you know, some people had to know, because they were doing some things to our house to have it ready for him to come home ... He did surprise Grandma and Grandpa."
In fact, that was their first stop, she said.
Of course, Hank's sisters and brothers were overjoyed to see him back home, as well.
"It was pretty exciting," Charlie said.
"I was really happy that he could finally get out of the hospital and come home," Lucy said.
Having their mom home was also a welcome reprieve of sorts for Lydia, as the oldest sibling.
"It was good that they got to come home and just, like, have him and Mom home, so it's not as much on me or, like, other people... (It was) like a breath (of relief)," Lydia said.
From now until holiday break, Hank will be in the Eureka High School library on Friday afternoons to complete online assignments and stay up to date with his classes.
"We will be home for a couple weeks at Christmas," Stephanie Wettstein said, "but we're going back (to Shirley Ryan) for the month of January."
Hank's health care team believes the intensive therapy he's receiving at Shirley Ryan will help him reach his recovery goals more quickly than if he'd done outpatient therapy, Stephanie Wettstein explained.
"It's a lot less when you're in outpatient than when you're in day rehab," she said.
At Shirley Ryan, he receives two sessions each of occupational and physical therapy four days a week, for 16 sessions each week, whereas in outpatient care, he would only have one a day four times a week, she said.
"Keep hitting it hard, basically ... he hasn't plateaued," his mother said.
The current plan is to stay at the Ronald McDonald House and continue therapy with Viola and the teams at Shirley Ryan until Jan. 30, Stephanie Wettstein said, after which they hope for Hank to return to some sense of normalcy.
"The plan is to start school in February and probably do some outpatient (therapy), but he's crushing his goals," his mother said.
Hank is extremely optimistic about his prospects, hoping to be "back to normal, or pretty close to it" within a year, he said.
While his recovery thus far has been amazing, according to his mother, the idea of playing a contact sport like football is still up to the medical professionals, Viola said.
"The topic of sports will be discussed with his surgeons, primary care provider and all of his therapists," she said. "The most important thing here is that recovery takes time, patience and intensive therapies."
That being said, Hank is already on his way to achieving one of his goals outside therapy: On Nov. 10, he was able to go hunting with his father, something Hank had been dreaming about while he was in therapy.
Using a tripod and a crossbow, which he loaded and set himself, Hank shot his first deer of the year not two and a half months after his brush with death.
"I was going to do it no matter what after the accident," Hank said later, showing off a photo he took with the deer. "I knew for a fact I was going to shoot a deer this year."
Photos: Downtown Bloomington celebrates Christmas with festive First Friday
Contact D. Jack Alkire at (309)820-3275.
Twitter: @d_jack_alkire
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