‘Miracle Boy’ marks 1-year anniversary

PALMER — Folks in the Mat-Su Valley know 9-year-old Christian Aldrich as the “Miracle Boy.”

Sunday, the Miracle Boy celebrates the one-year anniversary of a snowmachine vs. vehicle accident that, statistically speaking, should have claimed his life. Or, if he did live, at the least should have left him with permanently impaired brain function and missing his right leg.

He was crossing Soapstone Road on Nov. 13, 2010, when his snowmachine collided with a truck and he ended up pinned beneath it with the tire resting on his chest.

Alaska Orthopedic Surgeons’ Dr. John Duddy isn’t in the business of declaring miracles. But he said Thursday it isn’t overstating Christian’s story to describe the boy’s survival and recovery as miraculous.

“We don’t say that. We don’t call it that, but he truly is a miracle child in every way,” Dr. Duddy said. “Every aspect of his recovery has been remarkable.”

The Aldrich family has organized a Celebration of Miracles at 10:30 a.m., Nov. 13 at the Palmer Pentecostal Church on the one-year anniversary of the accident. A reception follows — starting around noon — and includes cake and ice cream.

“What better way to celebrate it than to stand in church and say ‘thank you Jesus for your miracle?’” said Amber Aldrich, Christian’s mother.

How blue he was stands out

Paramedic Glenn W. Stevens, the Mat-Su Borough’s EMS Quality Assurance Manager, was on his way home from the state EMS conference in Anchorage after one of the first snowfalls of the year when his son called to tell him about a accident on Soapstone Road.

From listening to radio traffic, he said he knew that the Palmer ambulance and Butte ambulance were already out on calls and that Mat-Su Central in Wasilla had been dispatched.

Since he was already in downtown Palmer, Stevens responded directly to the scene in his borough command vehicle.

“I saw Amber kneeling near the truck. I remember seeing Christian with his head and the upper part of his torso sticking out and that was it,” Stevens said. “In my mind, how blue he was stands out.”

The boy had no pulse and no respiration, he said.

Stevens worked with Jim Aldrich, Christian’s father, to use his truck with a boom to lift the truck straight up and off his son’s chest. But before they could move the truck, he said he, Dave Byers and first responder Rick Lucia dug the snow out from around the axel so they could free Christian’s right leg, which had become wrapped around the back axel during the collision.

Freed from the truck, Stevens and Byers moved the boy’s body to the road’s flat solid surface and began CPR.

They put in a breathing tube and inserted needles into his thorax to release pressure around his lungs, Stevens said. They administered epinephrine and continued CPR.

His heart also needed a similar procedure to release pressure around it and allow it to function. Stevens said they were transporting Christian to the helicopter to perform the procedure when his pulse came back.

“That was very surprising,” Stevens said.

How surprising?

“I’ve been doing this for 23 years and I’ve never had somebody recover after that kind of an accident,” Stevens said. “It’s exceedingly rare.”

Christian’s experience unique

Amber Aldrich explains it this way. There are things medicine can do and things it can’t do. Most of Christian’s case falls into the list of things medicine can’t do.

“Pretty much his whole case is in the things medicine can’t do column,” she said.

At the hospital, doctors said Christian’s injuries included two broken ribs, a bruised heart, crushed lungs, swollen and bruised liver and bowels, and he had a severe compound fracture to his right leg.

The leg was hanging by a thread, Dr. Duddy said. It might have to be amputated, if Christian lived through the night.

Brain damage also was likely, said Dr. Kraeli, a neurologist at Providence Alaska Medical Center.

But pediatrician B.J. Coopes was the most frank. She told Christian’s parents that there was too much damage and the boy might not live through the night.

“We were encouraged to stay with him and just love him,” Amber said.

Christian did live through the night and spent the next four days in a coma. And 20 days after the accident, Miracle Boy left the hospital.

But last month, Dr. Duddly told the Aldrich family that Christian’s right leg — which he had thought might require amputation — has completely healed as of Oct. 18. It was the last of the boy’s injuries to heal, Amber said.

Among his peers, Christian’s experience is rare.

Of 118 traumatic cardiac arrests during a 33-month study at the Harbor UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, Calif., only six children survived and all were neurologically impaired.

The study concluded that “children who had trauma resulting in cardiac arrest have universally poor outcomes, and survivors have severe neurological compromise.”

‘Yeah, I got hit by a truck. Yeah, I died.’

Dr. Elizabeth Galloway, pediatric intensive care specialist at Providence, said she suspects one factor that helped Christian’s recovery is “the fact that he was surrounded by snow while under the truck, even though he was without adequate oxygen and circulation for a period of time.”

“However, it is still unusual that Christian has made the impressive recovery he has,” she said.

For Stevens, Christian’s story reinforces the importance of having a well-developed, well-staffed EMS system in the borough.

To that end, he said the borough is in the process of interviewing to hire six, full-time paramedics.

“Every second was important to that kid,” Stevens said. “People don’t realize how important it is until they are the ones who call.”

Dr. Duddy also credits the Aldrich family, who he said has been exceedingly supportive in every way.

Christian is more interested in playing Angry Birds on the reporter’s iPhone than talking about the accident that nearly killed him.

“Yeah, I got hit by a truck. Yeah, I died. I did go to Heaven, and everyone is like ‘whoa!’

“But it’s not ‘whoa!’” he says throwing his arms out wide in mock amazement. “I was dead for 40 minutes and Jesus brought me back.”

Tragedy to blessing

In the end, this is the story of how something horrific became a blessing, Amber said.

“It started off to be such a tragic thing, but God made it work out in so many ways that I just feel privileged to see,” she said.

After Christian’s second bone graft July 1, he got a glow-in-the-dark cast — his favorite of the row of seven casts and one walking boot that hang on the wall behind the wood stove in the family’s snug cabin off Soapstone Road. He also endured a skin graft and six surgeries on his right leg.

“He’s been given a second chance at life and I was given a second chance to be thankful for having my baby back,” Amber said. “You don’t always get a second chance to say ‘I love you.’”

Contact Heather A. Resz at heather.resz@frontiersman.com or 352-2268.