Luke recovering

Nicole Holko at press conference

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The 4-year-old is aware that his family is present, but he cannot communicate yet, his mom said.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

AKRON — Luke Holko, the 4-year-old Greene Township boy hit by a foul ball at a Mahoning Valley Scrappers game three weeks ago, continues to make progress, his doctor and parents said Wednesday.

But more time is needed to determine to what extent he will recover from a brainstem injury after his skull was fractured by the line drive.

Luke has been upgraded from critical condition to serious but stable condition and is expected to be moved next week from the Akron Children’s Hospital to the Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital for Rehabilitation. He was moved Monday from Intensive Care to his own room and is breathing on his own, said Dr. James Besunder, director of critical-care medicine at Akron Children’s Hospital.

At a press conference in Akron, Dr. Besunder said all brain swelling has subsided, and the boy has survived the “life-threatening phase” and is now in the recovery phase.

The boy is still not fully conscious, and it’s too early to tell how much of the function controlled by the brainstem in the back of the skull will be restored, Dr. Besunder said. The majority of the damage to Luke’s brain occurred in the brainstem, the doctor said.

“The brainstem is healing and getting better, but right now I can’t tell it is going to recover 100 percent. ... Time will give us the answer to that question,” he said, adding that it could take several months to a year before the answer will be known.

“There is a very good chance Luke will make a good recovery,” Dr. Besunder said. “After three weeks, to see Luke where he’s at is very encouraging.”

The boy’s mother, Nicole, and father, Chad, have been with Luke continuously since the accident.

“He’s aware that we’re there from what we’ve been told,” Nicole said of Luke. “He sees us and he hears us, but he can’t talk to us.”

The brainstem is critical to involuntary actions such as breathing and heartbeat. The stem is also a “way station” for signals from the body, such as pain, which then signals the body what to do, Dr. Besunder said.

Because the boy is not able to communicate, there is a limit to what doctors can determine about how well the brainstem is functioning.

There is no damage to the cerebral hemispheres, the part of the brain that controls higher levels of thinking, Dr. Besunder said.

Luke moves his arms and legs and appears to blink his eyes when he is asked questions. When certain people speak to him, he appears to laugh or smile, his mother said.

“We’ve been treating him just like he’s normal and awake and aware from the very beginning,” Nicole said. “We tell him we’ve been there from the very beginning and we’ve never left him, which we haven’t. Even if we step out for a minute, somebody’s always there.

“We tell him he got hurt, his head got hurt and the doctors are fixing it, and he’s in the hospital and we’re there to make him better, and he doesn’t need to be scared.”

Nicole, a medical assistant at St. Joseph Health Center in Warren, said she has used up all of her paid time off, but her co-workers at St. Joe’s and St. Elizabeth’s have donated a total of six months of their paid time off to her.

Various fundraisers have been organized by friends and relatives who want to help with the bills.

Nicole and Chad have health insurance, and they haven’t received any bills yet, but there will be costs not covered by insurance, she said.

“We’ve never asked for anything but prayers for Luke, so everything else is just amazing,” she said of the hundreds of people who have helped out.

The Scrappers player who hit the foul ball, Ben Carlson, has been to the hospital three times to visit, and he feels terrible about what happened, but the Holkos have never blamed him for the accident, Nicole said. One of the main reasons they had a press conference two weeks ago was to tell him that, Nicole said.

“He’s a part of our family now, and he’s always welcome,” she said.

The Sept. 2 game was Luke’s third trip to Eastwood Field in Niles this year. Nicole, Luke, Chad and other family members were sitting in the first row, just behind first base. The sun was in their faces, and they had been shading their eyes to see where the balls were hit when the foul ball fractured Luke’s skull.

runyan@vindy.com