A video visit with Nancy Reyer, mother of Michael Hubbard, the Riverhead teenager who has been hospitalized since May 28, 2011, when he was severely burned by an exploding citronella gel firepot in his aunt’s Riverhead backyard.
Michael, then 14, suffered third-degree burns over 40 percent of his body. He was rushed to Stony Brook University Hospital. Nine days later, experiencing major organ failure due to the severity of his burns, Michael went into cardiac arrest and died.
Doctors resuscitated him, but his brain was deprived of oxygen for 13 minutes, causing severe traumatic brain injury. Reyer says doctors told her Michael would spend the rest of his life in a vegetative state. He remained in the pediatric intensive care unit at Stony Brook until September 2011, when Reyer was able to get him transferred to Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Westchester for more treatment and rehabilitation.
Reyer has been living in her son’s hospital room since the accident that robbed him of his life.
During a visit to Blythedale last month, and during a tour of the Brendan House in Riverhead — a home for traumatic brain injury patients where Michael will live — Reyer spoke to RiverheadLOCAL about what her daily life is like and the things she’s had to come to terms with over the course of the last two years.
RiverheadLOCAL video by Courtney Blasl
The survival of local journalism depends on your support.
We are a small family-owned operation. You rely on us to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Just a few dollars can help us continue to bring this important service to our community.
Support RiverheadLOCAL today.
