A baby has made a remarkable recovery after she suffered a fractured skull, hemorrhages in both eyes, a broken arm, spinal strains and injuries to her brain,
KVLY reported.
Baby Finley had only been going to the home daycare of Corey Gardner, 22, for about three weeks when her parents picked her up Nov. 6, 2018, and noticed something was wrong.
“She was really unresponsive. She wouldn’t open her eyes. She was letting her arms and legs hang limp,” Ashley Campion, Finley’s mom said.
Campion and her husband, Mike, rushed to a Williston hospital where doctors immediately started life-saving measures. As seizures overtook the infant, baby Finley was soon flown to a Bismarck hospital.
After three days of testing, doctors did a CT scan.
"And that's when we started learning how severe Finley's injuries were and how scary they were," Campion said.
Finding a fractured skull, Finley was flown again — this time to Sanford Children’s Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D.
“We were in life-saving mode — life-saving, not life-preserving, for a good portion of the first couple weeks. We didn’t know if they were would be able to save her life,” Campion said.
“It was eerie because you’re sitting on an ICU unit where little babies are crying and calling out for their families, and then you walked into Finley’s room and it was silent,” said Shauna Erickson, Finley’s aunt.
Doctors also found a broken arm, hemorrhaging of both eyes, spinal strains and injuries to Finley’s brain — all determined to be non-accidental.
"At the time it was said that she may not see, may not hear, may not walk, may not talk. There was really a lot of unknowns about what she would do at that point," Campion said.
"It got very difficult to be positive because things looked grimmer and grimmer everyday. There weren't the signs of progress that we were told there would be, and more intense and invasive procedures were having to happen to this helpless little girl," Erickson said.
After weeks of heavy doses of pain medication and fluid drained from her brain, Finley finally seemed to be making progress.
Finley continues to work weekly with her physical therapist, occupational therapist and speech therapist.
“She is hitting milestones that no one really thought she would hit, and it’s unbelievable,” Campion said.
“She’s ahead of developmental trajectory, which just flashes to me miracle. This is a miracle,” Erickson said.
One organization plans to celebrate miraculous Finley just days before her first birthday with a fundraiser event.
“It takes me back that people want to take time out of their schedule and put so much intention and energy into helping a little girl and her family. And I think that’s just so representative of the community we have in Fargo and the kindness and the goodness of the people around us,” Erickson said.
“We are at a one-year birthday and Finley’s going to be running around in a little tutu dress being a little ball of fire,” Campion said.