Jonathan, a 10-year-old Amish boy from Middlefield, Ohio, was walking to school on December 17, 2018, when life took an unfortunate turn for him and his large family of 10.
That morning, on Jonathan's regular path to school, he waited on the sidewalk for a dump truck to pass so he could continue on his way. As soon as it had passed, Jonathan darted into the street, not realizing there was a large work truck following closely behind. Unfortunately, the driver of the second truck did not have time to stop, and Jonathan never made it to school that day.
He was hit so hard, the impact broke the left headlight completely out of the grill. “Jonathan was then thrown 40 to 50 feet and landed on the soft shoulder of the road,” his mother, Fannie, told us. “A school bus driver and van driver stopped and watched over Jonathan until paramedics arrived and transported Jonathan via life-flight.”
“Jonathan had a severe traumatic brain injury, broken left femur bone, a fractured pelvis and skull,” Fannie solemnly recalls. “Jonathan was in a deep coma in the ICU for 4 weeks, and was then transferred to a rehab hospital for six and a half weeks.”
Jonathan is fitted in his new adaptive bike gifted by Holton’s Heroes before having it transported to his home in Middlefield, Ohio.
Now, two years later, the right side of Jonathan’s body is moderately mobile and in good use, but the left side is still slow to recover.
“It has been a difficult journey watching a perfectly healthy, normal son recover from a devastating accident,” Fannie says of her son’s rehabilitation.
Although he is improving, Jonathan has very limited speech, a feeding tube, poor motor control, limited use of his left arm, and has developed scoliosis. However, Fannie told us his left leg is getting stronger with therapy and they’re looking for ways to do similar therapeutic work at home. Due to far travel distances, especially considering they’re Amish and therefore don’t own a vehicle, as well as the ever-changing COVID-19 restrictions, it’s hard for Jonathan to make it to therapy all the time.
Fannie and Jonathan's dad, Rudy, were hoping Holton’s Heroes could help Jonathan get his very own adaptive bike, as it’s been such a terrific tool at therapy. So, that’s exactly what we did with our friends at Freedom Concepts.
Thanks to our incredible donors, we were able to get Jonathan a custom Holton’s Heroes bike for use at home. (Check out that sweet custom paint job!!) Now, Jonathan is able to work on his mobility, power, control, and strength any time or day he wants.
“We all miss our fun-loving, normal-speaking, animal-loving Jonathan so we all try to do our part to make his ‘new normal’ life as fun as possible,” Fannie told us. “He used to love brushing our ponies in the barn, holding baby kittens, riding tricycles and scooters, and even hauling sawdust around his dad’s pallet shop.”
Well, all of us at Holton’s Heroes hope the addition of this new therapy device allows Jonathan to rejoin his 7 brothers and sisters back outside again where he loved to spend so much of his time. Thank you to everyone that help make this possible with your donations.
“Thank you very much with tons of gratitude for helping enhance our son’s recovery in the purchase of his very own therapy bike! What a wonderful blessing you all are!”
On Father’s Day in 2017, 2-year-old Josiah was running around his home, excitedly zooming from room-to-room , as he typically did. However, in a matter of seconds he managed to elope out of the back door undetected and make his way to the family pool. Read Josiah’s amazing tale of recovery now.