Faith keeps them going

Feb. 27—Andrew Drumheller was in the middle of doing yard work at his Yuba City home on Jan. 9 when he noticed something was off.

He saw his three-year-old son's ride-on toy in the pool. Then he saw every parent's worst nightmare — his son, Brody, floating face down.

He jumped into the pool and grabbed Brody before running to the house. Nichole Drumheller knew immediately that something terrible had happened when her husband began banging on the door. As she called 9-1-1, Andrew began to perform CPR. Their neighbors, one of whom is a local doctor, heard the family's screaming and rushed over to assist with CPR.

"It was a complete out-of-body experience. People say they black out, and I think it's a natural body response when you introduce that type of trauma," said Nichole Drumheller. "We still can't get a grip over what happened to us. We've relied on our faith to keep us going. It's something that is completely out of our hands."

First responders were at the house within five minutes — the Drumhellers later learned that paramedics just happened to stop and park down the road that day, which wasn't a typical location for them to wait for a call.

After working to revive Brody's heartbeat at the house for a short time, he was taken to Adventist Health and Rideout where CPR was continued for about another hour.

Approximately 82 minutes into those efforts and 17 rounds of epinephrine (an injection meant to kickstart the heart) later, doctors were able to restart enough activity in Brody's heart to intubate him to help with breathing.

Brody suffered from an anoxic brain injury, which is caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain that results in the death of brain cells. His organs were shutting down and his vitals were trending in the wrong direction, but his parents kept their faith.

"Your brain starts to die after just four minutes of no oxygen. When you put it in perspective just how long he went without oxygen, the prognosis wasn't good," said Nichole Drumheller. "By the grace of God, he is still with us, and he continues to blow every doctor and physician away by the progress he's made."

Recovery

Once Brody regained a pulse, he was airlifted to a pediatric intensive care unit in Sacramento, where he spent about three weeks. From there, he was transported to Shriners Hospitals for Children in Sacramento to begin intensive rehabilitation.

"He left the ICU without really any motor control, the ability to speak or eat, and had a tube in his stomach. At Shriners, we are working on his physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy, so it's about three hours of intensive rehab a day to re-engage his motor system," said Nichole Drumheller.

The road to recovery will be long, but Brody is making progress on a daily basis, she said. He's still nonverbal, but he's growing more aware by the day. On top of the many other challenges they are going through, COVID-19 restrictions only allow one parent to be with him at a time, so navigating that has also been a struggle for the Drumhellers.

"Just the fact that he's making such great progress shows how important faith is," said Nichole Drumheller. "And hearing people are praying for us is also so empowering. That's what has gotten him to where he is today."

The Drumhellers have also benefited from working for companies that have allowed them time away from their jobs to take care of Brody and other family needs at this time.

Fundraiser/next steps

Mike and Amanda Cearley, long-time friends of the Drumhellers, started a GoFundMe campaign (https://bit.ly/3uuwdD7) this week to help with the ongoing medical expenses the family will be confronted with in the months ahead. A goal of $50,000 was set, and as of Friday afternoon, $32,000 had been raised by 312 donors.

Amanda Cearley said she started the fundraising campaign because the community wanted to know how to support the Drumhellers and were offering to donate via Venmo, meal trains, gift cards and other avenues.

"To the community, I want to say thank you," said Amanda Cearley. "Thank you for the prayers, and the shares, and the support. Thank you for easing the financial hardship that the treatments will cause as well as giving the Drumhellers the ability to share Brody's story as a story of awareness for pool safety and hope for future families in a similar situation."

Further treatment for Brody will be costly as it takes the family around the country, and none of it is covered by the family's insurance.

Brody could be discharged from Shriners as early as March 17. At that point, the family will be traveling to Louisiana to meet with a hyperbaric oxygen therapy specialist, which could be a two month process. Then, they plan to go to Florida to meet with another specialized therapist focused on reintegrating Brody's reflexes. Lastly, they plan to travel to Texas to meet with a developmental functional neurologist.

"It's going to be a busy summer to say the least but we are looking forward to getting home and seeing where he is at in his recovery," said Nichole Drumheller.

She said the family waited six weeks to share Brody's story with the public, both because of how traumatic it was and also because of the vulnerability associated with opening up about the experience. She came to the conclusion that sharing the story would spread awareness about the importance of pool safety for parents with young children.

"No one thinks it can happen to them. There is this naive mentality you tend to have, but it does happen, so I hope sharing Brody's story can raise awareness about safeguards," said Nichole Drumheller.

Safeguards can include putting a fence around the pool, implementing a pool alarm that senses any movement in the water, and investing in pool covers.

"I just want to say that our family is so thankful for all the continued support and prayers throughout all of this, and I plan on continuing to update people via social media on how Brody is doing," said Nichole Drumheller. "There's been a flood of interest by the community in knowing about his updates and wanting to watch this miracle unfold. It's been absolutely amazing."

To keep up with Brody's road to recovery on Facebook, visit https://bit.ly/3sjYcDq.