Young Woman Walking Tall Years After Brain Trauma

February 2nd, 2011 was an unusually calm day on the Bowman farm, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.  That changed soon after 6-year-old Reagan got home from school. Like most days she had gone out to play in the loft of a storage shed.

Her dad recalled, “Every day she went out there and plays with her cats and she fell and hit her head on the concrete and crawled herself out.”

Reagan’s mom said, “My son found her in the driveway and then he picked her up and carried her to my husband.”

Her parents, Daryl and Tara saw no signs of serious injury.

Tara remembered, “Yes, she was crying, but she would not say anything.  She wasn't bleeding there was nothing to indicate she was really hurt.”

To be safe, they called 911.  They were stunned when the rescue squad told them Reagan needed to be taken the local hospital, and then medevac’d to the University of Virginia trauma center in nearby Charlottesville.  

“And that was definitely a tough time watching the helicopter go across the mountain into the horizon,” Tara said, “over to Charlottesville; knowing that your baby's in that helicopter, and you're not, you know.”

Daryl remembered, “We had a lot of concerns. And on the way to UVA I made like three phone calls to three preachers and kinda told them to pray for us.”

Reagan’s mom said, “I really expected to take her over to UVA and be home in a day or two.”

At the hospital, they learned Reagan had suffered head trauma and was in critical condition.  Dr. Norwood from UVA said, “In addition to her severe brain injury she also had a fracture of her lower left leg and she had a fracture of her right orbits or around her right eye. It was very severe. Her injuries were life threatening. She could have died in the short term, in the acute process.”

Reagan’s mom was stunned. “She was laying there with every tube in the world hooked up to her and they did drill into her skull to check to check the cranial pressure. Looking at your child laying there is definitely hard…it is very hard.”

Her dad said, “You just couldn’t believe it. I mean, just, you was kinda confused and didn't know what to think.”

Dr. Norwood continued to explain her condition. “The brain injury resulted in swelling of her brain which progressed rapidly over the first 48 hours.”

“What would have eventually happened is her brain would have seeped out of her ears,” Tara said, “and then she would have died. But I just said, God you can’t take her yet, please don’t take her yet.”

Dr. Norwood explained the procedure to reduce Reagan’s swelling, “They actually eventually had to remove both of her frontal bones in order to allow her brain to have room to swell so that further damage would not occur.”

The family reached out to their community for prayer. Daryl said, “Kids went to the Community Christian School….” Tara continued “…and the very next day after the accident they all got around the gym and held hands in a big circle and prayed for her.”

Daryl continued, “Friends came over and had prayer with us. She came through her surgery just fine, no complications, but we'll not know any effects of her accident until she wakes up from her induced coma.”

“Then the concern would be that she would have such severe long-term brain damage, Dr. Norwood said, “that she would end up with problems with walking talking, thinking, eating, talking care of herself.”

Reagan was heavily sedated for three weeks.  During that time the brain swelling went down enough for doctors to be able to replace the bones in her skull. Afterwards, she started physical therapy.

Her mom recalled, “Reagan had to relearn to brush her teeth and to walk again. And make sure she didn’t choke when she would swallow so we had to teach her how to swallow again and to protect her air way.”    

Her dad added, “But every day you could tell she was getting better. You couldn’t keep her down before the accident so she was strong willed.”  

Then another problem developed. Dr Norwood explained, “Once her skull was put back in, unfortunately she developed an infection at the site and she ended up having to be on several courses of antibiotics to treat that.  She ended up having to have the fluid drained out of that area.”

The family continued to pray for their little girl’s healing.

Daryl said, “And every night we prayed over her.”

Her mom added, “We surrounded the room with Christian music and prayers and Scripture and spoke the word out loud.”

Reagan’s infection cleared up quickly and she continued her therapy.

“She ended up spending less time in rehabilitation than we thought she was going to need to spend in rehabilitation.” Dr Norwood said, “Her progress was very rapid, more rapid than we typically see with children who have this degree of severity of a brain injury.”

Tara remembered, “It was 56 days after the accident.  Eight weeks that we got to come home on March the 30th. And God didn't leave anything unhealed. Everything was healed completely.”

That was 2011. Today as Reagan moves into her teen years she still shows no sign of long-term effects. Reagan said, “I feel perfectly fine. I feel I can do anything.”

And Dr. Norwood agrees, “We typically would see significant long-term problems with attention, with impulse control problems, language problems when you look at the areas of her brain that were injured. And again it's quite remarkable that she isn't manifesting those difficulties.”

Tara remembered, “To finally bring Reagan home and have her walk through the house was just an enormous, happy feeling, just. ‘Thank you, God.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for letting her walk through that door.”  

“I know that God answers prayers because I’m living proof of that.” Reagan said.

Reagan’s mom concluded, “Prayer does work and that the power of prayer was there and healed her completely and that God is the Great Physician.”