Mother and son see miracles after horrific crash
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ST. ANTHONY — A mother and her 8-year-old son made it home in time for Christmas after being released from two separate hospitals due to a crash.
Shianne Call and her son Bekkett were involved in a single-vehicle crash on Nov. 4 in Madison County. EastIdahoNews.com previously reported on the crash and talked to Shianne’s husband, Aaron Call, who had witnessed it all.
Shianne and Bekkett were in a pickup truck driving back home to St. Anthony from Madison County while Aaron was following in a vehicle behind them. The truck fishtailed.
Then Aaron saw the truck flip and his wife thrown at least 15 feet.
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Shianne recalls the crash
Shianne believes she hit black ice. Road conditions weren’t great that day.
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“The truck started to slide, and I turned into the slide like you are taught to,” Shianne recalls. “In my head, I was like, ‘This is going to be bad,’ and the truck just kept sliding. I remember as it started to slip, I looked over at my son and felt completely and utterly helpless because I couldn’t keep him safe.”
“I remember hitting … at that point, and it knocked me out, I believe, because I don’t remember thrashing around or getting thrown from the vehicle. I heard Aaron screaming,” she said. “I remember the terror in his voice, and I’m like, ‘Oh crap, this is bad.'”
Shianne is a nurse, so she immediately went into nurse mode as soon as she woke up from the crash. She moved her legs to see if she was paralyzed. She realized they worked and continued to move and check the rest of her body.
“I remember thinking, ‘OK, I am awake. I remember what happened. We just got in a wreck,’ and then I settled on my breathing, and I wasn’t breathing well at all. I knew that something severe was going on.”
She remembers Aaron coming up to her after the crash, and she told him to check Bekkett.
Aaron said in November that he was grateful to the man who climbed into the truck and held his son.
Shianne and Bekkett hospitalized
Shianne was taken on a stretcher to an ambulance. She said it was getting harder to breathe, but medical crews were encouraging and helping her.
She went in and out of consciousness. She and Bekkett were taken to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center. She recalls a doctor helped get a chest tube inside of her to help her breathe.
“They gave me some medication, and it stopped my breathing. Then they called code blue (cardiac or respiratory arrest) on me, and they brought me back,” she said.
At some point, she said her mom came to tell her that Bekkett was being transferred to Primary Children’s Hospital in Utah. Aaron said Bekkett had a puncture wound in his back, broken ribs, a punctured lung, lacerated liver and a broken back in two spots. He had to be put on a ventilator.
Shianne had similar injuries.
“I was scared because, at that point, I knew he wasn’t good, and I knew that it was bad if he had to be transferred down to Primary Children’s,” Shianne said. “Then … I remember (the medical staff) coming in and telling me I had to go into emergency surgery because I was bleeding to death because my liver was lacerated so bad. That’s the last thing I remember, and then I woke up in the ICU.”
Aaron was right beside her when she woke up.
“We found out later on that they don’t generally let family stay in the ICU, but they let Aaron stay there the first night, and the reason why they did that was because they didn’t think I was going to make it through the night,” Shianne said.
She fought through the most incredible pain she had ever experienced.
“It was the most severe pain I have ever felt in my life. I told Aaron that I would have a million kids before I ever dealt with ribs broken like that again. It was terrible,” she said.
Throughout the coming days, Aaron would update her on how Bekkett was doing. People would visit her in the hospital.
Shianne’s mother stayed with Bekkett in Utah and would Facetime call.
“When he was intubated —- we know a little bit of sign language —- so I would talk to him a lot, and he would sign that he loves me or he would mouth, ‘I love you’ around the tube, but I would tell him how brave he was and how strong I thought he was and that I was super proud of him,” Shianne said.
Angels protected her at the scene
It was not time for Shianne to go.
“I felt like at one point I was talking to God — I don’t know — a lot of people aren’t religious, but he told me that I had to come back and take care of Bekkett and Aaron and that they needed me still so I had to go back,” Shianne recalls.
She said during her time at the hospital, she prayed a lot.
“I don’t know if it was the sedation drugs or what was really going on, but God told me there were angels around me and taking care of me and keeping me alive. He told me they were there the day of the accident,” she said. “I was going probably 70 miles per hour because that’s the speed limit on the freeway, and I was thrown from the truck. There’s not a lot of people who live that can tell that tale.”
Shianne and Bekkett are released
Almost a month later after the accident, Shianne was released from the hospital on Nov. 29. She went back home with Aaron to St. Anthony for two days because she was still in a lot of pain. Then, she couldn’t wait any longer and wanted to see Bekkett.
“My sister-in-law kept telling me, ‘Shianne, I know the second you get down there, Bekkett is going to improve so much,'” she said. “When we got down there, he kind of blossomed in a sense. He just started doing so much better, and he was working with physical therapy, and they were like, ‘He’s ready to go home.'”
Bekkett was released from the hospital five days later when Shianne arrived. He was discharged on Dec. 6.
“He’s a little rockstar. He has done amazing,” she said.
A road to recovery
Since being home, Shianne has gone to the ER after she caught a bug. Doctors found several blood clots in her lungs on both sides. Now, she is on a blood thinner.
It will be a long road to recovery, but Shianne and Bekkett take each day step by step. They both will have upcoming surgeries.
Everyone was able to be home for Christmas and spend time with family.
“I’m just so thankful to have both Shianne and Bekkett home. I also want to thank the community for all the support and love that has been shown to us,” Aaron told EastIdahoNews.com.
Shianne said she, too, is grateful to all the people who have helped her and her family along the way by donating money and writing words of encouragement. Shianne and Aaron additionally were Secret Santa recipients, a program that gives $1 million away during the holiday season to deserving people in eastern Idaho.
“The blessings that came from people that we don’t even know, the people that donated to our Venmo, to Secret Santa for blessing us the way that he did — there’s just not enough words to explain how grateful I am to the community,” Shianne said. “It made a really bad situation a lot better than it could have been.”
