UPDATED Friday morning: Michael’s aunt, Fran Reyer-Johnson said the family was called to the hospital last night because Michael’s condition had deteriorated. Doctors saved the boy’s life, but he is still in very critical condition. The family asks for your continued prayers. To read a message from Ms. Reyer-Johnson, click here.
The next 24 hours are crucial for Michael Hubbard, the 14-year-old Riverhead boy severely burned when a gel candle exploded in his face in a backyard accident May 28, his aunt, Fran Reyer-Johnson said today.
“He took a turn for the worse today,” Reyer-Johnson said. “Right now it’s really kind of touch and go.”
Speaking from Stony Brook University Medical Center, where Michael remains in critical condition battling for his life, Reyer-Johnson said Michael is now struggling to fight off an infection, even as his body tries to cope with kidney failure and fluid in one of his lungs. He remains on dialysis and on a ventilator, which helps him breathe.
Michael’s mother Nancy Reyer has kept a near-constant vigil at her only child’s bedside in the pediatric intensive care unit over the past 12 days. She leaves the room when the burn unit team arrives to give her son’s body an antibiotic wash, a process that takes two hours to complete.
Michael was in a medically induced coma until today, when doctors decided to lighten his sedation somewhat in the hope that it will help him better fight the infection, Reyer-Johnson said.
In a telephone conversation Wednesday, Michael’s mother said she is deeply moved by all the support and love shown to Michael and her by the entire Riverhead community.
“It’s hard to even find words to express how I feel,” she said. “The outpouring has been overwhelming. I keep telling him how much I love him and how much our whole community loves him,” she said yesterday. “I believe he can hear me. And if he can’t hear me, he knows I would be here. He knows I wouldn’t leave him,” she said.
Reyer’s own hands were burned when she frantically tried to put out the flames on Michael’s body after the citronella gel candle he was attempting to refill suddenly blew up in his face. The boy suffered third-degree burns on 40 percent of his body. His face and neck suffered the most severe burns, his aunt said, but his entire torso was also badly burned.
At the time of the accident, Michael was helping his mother set up for a family party in his Aunt Fran’s backyard on Rabbit Run in Riverhead. The party, scheduled for the following day, was to celebrate his aunt’s wedding that Friday.
Reyer was treated for her injuries at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, as a Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance crew raced her son to Stony Brook. A county police helicopter, summoned by EMTs to airlift the boy the Stony Brook, was unable to land because of dense fog that night, forcing EMTs to make the trek by land.
“We appreciate everyone’s prayers and good wishes,” Reyer-Johnson said. Friends and well-wishers are encouraged to post messages in the guest book on the CaringBrdige.org web page set up by the family, but please don’t call Nancy, Reyer-Johnson said. “She’s just being inundated right now and it’s stressful.”
Also, doctors have ordered that visitors be limited to immediate family only at this time, Reyer-Johnson said.
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