Caroline Hope Lanctot
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Caroline Hope Lanctot
Born March 24, 2002
My wife Jodi and my daughter Caroline were in a car accident on February 7th of this year (2003). Due to bad weather conditions they were blinded by the spray of an oncoming tractor-trialer which cause her to spin out of control into the other lane and was T-boned by an SUV. My wife suffered severe head injuries and was in a coma for 18 days upon which she was temporarily trached and since waking up had to go through months of rehabilitation in order to be be able to walk on her own again. She's incredibly strong and has made amazing progress since the accident. She was discharged from Moss Rehab in Philadelphia on April 9th and has been going through out-patient rehab since and is doing great. I'm absolutely amazed at how far she's come and just can't believe how incredible she is.
Our daughter Caroline suffered a severe stretch to her spinal cord up at the C1 - C2 level of her spinal cord as well as some head injuries. She was 10 months old at the time. It was a miracle that she even made it to the hospital alive. The three days that followed, we watched the pressures in her brain get dangerously high on her monitors just hoping she was going to make it. All the while my wife was in a coma and in critical condition herself in a hospital about 35 miles away in Trenton NJ. The injury has left Caroline, with a trach attached to a ventilator. She had to go through a surgery to fuse her top three vertebrae with some bone from her hip which required her to be in a halo for 6 weeks. We finally got to bring her home on July 22, 2003 and she has been thriving and is making great progress in her road to recovery. Over the past few months she's continued to make steady progress and become very stable. She continues to gain more and more movement and feeling throughout her body and is starting to sporadically take breaths on her own everyday now.
We know we have a long way to go with this but are very optimistic on what's to come down the road. I'm just happy to have both of my girls home again along with one of the two dogs. We lost one of them in the accident as well, they were both in the car with them that day. Sam didn't make it but Chloe came through without a scratch, God only knows how. Both my wife and daughter are so incredibly strong and continue to amaze me every day. I came so close to losing them both. I'm blessed to still have them in my life.
Photos
- http://homepage.mac.com/mlanctot1/PhotoAlbum1.html
- http://homepage.mac.com/mlanctot1/PhotoAlbum3.html
Above are links to two pages that have a complete set of photos showing
what Caroline has gone through since the accident and where she is
today.
Mike Lanctot
