New Patient Story

On December 27th, 2018 I came home to find my 11 year old bonus son has shot himself in the head with my husband’s gun. He was still alive when I found him. I ran to get my phone and called 911. The only thing I could do was apply pressure to his head to try to stop the bleeding. I told him I loved him and to stay with me. Paramedics arrived and took him down to the elementary school to be life flighted to OHSU. When he arrived they were able to do a surgery, removing a portion of his skull to allow his brain to swell. His ICP was 71. He was moved to PICU at Doernbecher’s. He was not stable enough for imaging at the time so we waited. He was placed into a medically induced coma to prevent additional brain activity. After a couple days we were able to do a CT to determine what damage was done. They determined a blood clot had formed and took him in for another surgery to remove it. They were successful in this and his ICP dropped back down to about 13. He was having seizures while under so they administered medication. After a few days they informed us that there was no brain activity and the path of the bullet was surrounded by necrotic tissue. On January 4th 2019, we removed him from life support. It’s been incredibly hard managing this grief. I wanted to share my story because even though it is enormously sad, people need to know that age does not matter. Mental health affects everyone and it’s generally the people you would least expect because they don’t want you to know they are struggling. I won’t silence Dakoda’s suicide because it happened and it shouldn’t have.