Teen recovers rapidly from serious brain injury
Fourteen-year-old Scotty Raymond of New Jersey was released from the hospital August 25th after being seriously injured August 2nd when he was struck by a car. He was walking his bike with a friend at around 10:30 pm at the time of the accident. Scotty, who was not wearing a helmet, suffered a traumatic brain injury when his head hit the concrete. He also had a large open wound on his leg that would require plastic surgery and another on his arm. His head and ear had large lacerations, and his whole body was bruised. Scotty was released from Children's Specialized Hospital at Mountainside after a miraculous recovery helped by family support and a message board created by his aunt of which more than 500 comments of support were posted. He was transferred to Children's on August 17th from Hackensack Unive rsity Medical Center, where he had been in the intensive-care and acute-care units. At Children’s, he underwent six hours of speech, occupational and physical therapy daily. Nevertheless, he was still suffering from "confusion, short-term memory deficit, mood swings and poor attention span," according to Dr. Krishan Yalamanchi, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician who treated him at Children's. On August 18th, everything changed. He started looking at some pictures of his German shepherd on his father's computer and remembered. "I started remembering things after I saw the picture, and then everything just snapped into place," the teen said. His father couldn't believe his son's instant recovery. His pediatrician says his recovery has been remarkable.
