Verbick rebounding from serious accident

FILE PHOTO
This photo of Dustin Verbick was taken last year as he prepared for a trip with the Boy Scouts to England and Scotland. Verbick, 16, is recovering from a serious accident in early June.

“We had just finished lunch at Pizza Ranch and we were cruising down Katydid (Road), but it was really loose gravel, and I just lost control of the truck. After that, I don’t remember much.”

Sixteen-year-old Maryville Resident Dustin Verbick and his friend, 15-year-old Maverick Price of Parnell were involved in a serious one-vehicle accident on June 2 outside of Maryville. Both were transported to SSM Health St. Francis in Maryville, then Life Flighted to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

It wasn’t a pretty sight.

“He had ruptured his stomach and spleen, had a collapsed left lung and diaphragm, his diaphragm was separated from his lung, he had various hairline fractures to his ribs, and his L-3 (lumbar spinal segment) had burst,” Dustin’s mother, Tabatha Verbick, recalled. “His Life Flight was pushed back a little, too, because his stomach had actually come open, so it was harder to stabilize him for the Life Flight.”

In the midst of a potential tragedy, however, Tabatha noticed a miracle.

“It’s really great where he crashed,” Tabatha said. “Less than a half-mile down the road, there aren’t even houses. Nobody would’ve seen anything, and both of those boys might be dead now.”

It was the quick response from the people living on Katydid Road that Tabatha credits with Dustin and Maverick’s survival. “I don’t know who called 911 so quickly, but I couldn’t be more grateful for them,” she said.

However, Dustin’s survival was not guaranteed, and for the next six hours, it was in constant jeopardy.

Upon his arrival at Children’s Mercy, Dustin was taken straight into an operating room, where doctors worked to save his life and stabilize his condition.

“The doctors said he went soft a few times during surgery,” Tabatha said. “They had to bring him back to keep operating.”

More than two hours later, the first surgery was complete, and Dustin was in stable condition. The road to recovery lay ahead.

Dustin was transferred to a room in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit right beside Maverick’s, where he would spend the next several weeks.

“Dustin was heavily sedated for awhile,” Tabatha said. “They kept him under for as long as they could while he built up strength to get the surgery on his spine.”

A week into his stay in the PICU, doctors determined he was ready for the spine surgery. However, when turning him over into the correct position for his surgery, Dustin crashed.

After resuscitating him once again, the surgery was postponed once more.

While still waiting to become strong enough to undergo spinal surgery, there were several operations Dustin needed.

“He had his heart drained of excess fluid at one point,” Tabatha said. “He also had a tracheotomy done to improve his breathing.

“They also needed to bring him out of sedation after about a week and a half because his blood pressure was dropping too low.”

The recovery process was halted two weeks into Dustin’s hospital stay when the sutures on his stomach burst. In surgery, doctors struggled to find the problem.

“Then another miracle happened,” Tabatha explained. “There was a trail of (fluid) that led doctors straight to the patch on his diaphragm, which had become infected.”

That turned out to be a major source of hindrance for Dustin’s recovery. Doctor’s replaced the patch and cleaned out the infection, and Dustin’s condition began to improve.

“They were finally able to start giving him nutrition past cotton swabs (with water),” Tabatha explained. “They started him on IV nutrition a week after they cleared the infection.”

A few days after doctors were able to start feeding Dustin, he had regained enough strength to warrant the spinal surgery. Through decompression – maneuvering the nerve roots in his lower back to remove bone chips, then installing a titanium-mesh cage in place of the L-3 segment, and finally lining Dustin’s lower back with steel rods secured with screws in all 5 lumbar sections of his spine – the doctors were able to repair the damage.

Dustin’s condition kept improving. He began to go through minor physical therapy while in the PICU – sitting up in bed and some assisted movement – and was moved out of the PICU after a week when he was able to breathe without machine support.

After one week on the floor, the tracheotomy was removed. One week later, Dustin was released from the hospital with a WoundVac and a feeding tube for his evening meals.

“He has to consume 2,700-3,000 calories a day to maintain his current weight,…” Tabitha commented, “… and 3,200 in order to start gaining. This is hard, because their repairs to his stomach resulted in a stomach reduction.”

However, the road to recovery still had some bumps for Dustin, as he made a return trip to Children’s Mercy due to a bowel obstruction one week after being released. But, after only another week in the hospital, Dustin returned home.

As of yesterday, Dustin has spent two consecutive weeks out of the hospital, other than returning for follow-up and clinical appointments this weekend into Monday.

With school starting soon, however, Dustin’s condition warranted several accommodations to be made.

“Maryville [High School] was very understanding and accommodating,” Tabatha said. “They’re allowing him to ease into the long school schedule on a day-by-day basis, with the goal of spending more time in school each day.”

“I hope to be going the full day by the end of the quarter,” Dustin quipped.

“But in the meantime, his early-morning English class is an online class so he can take it near the VoTech building, where his next class is,” Tabatha explained. “They’re also granting him elevator access in the two-story part of the school.

“The whole focus is on him conserving and retaining energy so that he can focus on learning.”

Tabatha also wanted to make sure to thank the many who have supported their family during this time – the neighbors who fixed meals, mowed the lawn, and took care of their pets; her “very flexible” employer at Northwest Missouri State who understood the need to take time off and worked with her; and the Ronald McDonald House in Kansas City for helping them with lodging and meals during Dustin’s hospital stays.

As for Dustin, he’s just blown away by the support, from a dinner fundraiser at Hy-Vee to his sister and her friends running a t-shirt fundraiser. He was also happy to be able to see the Nodaway County Fair fireworks after he returned to Maryville.

For information on how you can support Dustin’s recovery as well as updates on the recovery process, you can log on to Facebook and search “prayer group for Dustin Verbick.” His sister is also running a GoFundMe page to help the family financially, at www.gofundme.com/29t4nkk.