Minnesota
Minnesota hockey player paralyzed during game seeing ‘small miracles’
Hockey player paralyzed becoming ‘Miracle Boy’
Jackson Drum’s family was told he would probably be a quadriplegic for life after an injury during a hockey game. But since then, small changes already feel like enormous miracles.
(FOX 9) – A few weeks ago, Jackson Drum’s family was told he would probably be a quadriplegic for life, with no sensation or movement below his neck and never able to breathe on his own.
But small changes already feel like enormous miracles.
“They said to expect him to be fully quadriplegic,” Emily Haeg Nguyen, his aunt, told FOX 9. “We were holding onto hope.”
A sudden life-altering moment
The backstory:
Jackson, who hails from Parker’s Prairie north of Alexandria, plays hockey for the Coeur D’Alene Hockey Academy in Idaho.
On Jan. 24, he’d just scored a goal during a game in Vancouver.
Minutes later, a hard hit into the boards changed everything when he went into cardiac arrest on the ice.
Doctors in Vancouver fused two vertebrae in his neck, but told the family to expect lifetime paralysis: no sensation or movement below the neck and never able to breathe on his own.
‘The Miracle Boy’
Dig deeper:
Jackson has since began to recover a slight sensation of people touching him, and started making slight muscle movements.
Doctors in Vancouver couldn’t believe it.
“They just came in there and were shocked,” Jason Drum, Jackson’s father, told FOX 9. “They just said it was a miracle. Their own words!”
Using an alphabet board in his hospital room, Jackson nicknamed himself “the miracle boy.”
Move to Atlanta
What’s next:
Last week, Jackson was airlifted to Shepherd’s Center in Atlanta, which specializes in spinal cord injuries. The nearly $50,000 flight was covered by the generosity of donors to the family’s “Give Send Go” campaign.
He’ll be there for at least a few months, but what they continue to see is nothing short of astounding.
He’s been able to breathe on his own for about an hour a day, which wasn’t supposed to happen.
And his family shared a video of Jackson slightly moving his left leg.
“He started wiggling his shoulders,” said Emily. “And then just these past few days, he started wiggling a few fingers on his left hand. And I guess my sister said she saw him wiggling his pinky toe as well.”
Another fundraiser is planned for April 12 in Alexandria to help cover the costs of his care and to help prepare his home for his eventual return to Minnesota.
What his recovery looks like is still unknown, but what’s happened so far already has inspired the hockey community.