Brett Johnson
Brett Johnson never thought of himself as a blood recipient, but 19 units later he and his mother have a story to share that they hope will inspire others to give blood.
In 2005, Brett and Mari Johnson were eagerly waiting the birth of their second child. On a beautiful Sunday morning in August, Brett and his good friend Harl, both sport motorcycle enthusiasts, decided to enjoy the good weather with a ride.
For safety purposes Brett dressed in his heavy boots, Kevlar riding pants and jacket, leather gloves, and full-face helmet. He had driven along the challenging Poudre Canyon Road foothills outside of Fort Collins, Col., many times, but on this morning something went wrong and his motorcycle failed to make a tight corner. Harl was riding ahead of Brett, but in his rearview mirror he saw his friend thrown into the guardrail at 40 mph. A driver with a CB stopped at the accident scene and radioed for the Poudre Valley Hospital Regional Trauma Center helicopter.
In Wisconsin, Brett’s parents were harvesting and freezing corn from their garden. That afternoon, Mari called from the hospital after talking with the doctors. She told his parents that he was alive, but was badly hurt. Brett had broken many ribs, fractured his sacrum, had a stable non-displaced fracture to his C2 vertebrae, a crushed left scapula, a punctured lung, a lacerated spleen, and a broken leg and ankle. At this time, he was conscious but not lucid.
Brett’s parents left Wisconsin and drove through the night to arrive at the hospital the next morning at 11 a.m. He was located in the Surgical Neurological Intensive Care Unit of the hospital. Pouches of fluids, medications and blood hung over his bed and the drain tube in his chest seeped blood and fluid into a collection bottle. Day and night his family stayed in the hospital room with him and rejoiced when he started to seem better.
His mom, Sheila, was with him when she noticed that Brett’s face was ashen and beaded with drops of sweat. She touched his hand and it was icy cold. A Code Blue was called and doctors, nurses and technicians flooded the room with x-ray machines, transfusions, injections and consultations. Doctors feared that the internal bleeding was coming from his heart and ordered emergency surgery. After surviving that surgery, Brett underwent two more procedures to try to repair his crushed shoulder.
After 11 days in SNICU and 7 more days in the surgical ward, Brett was transferred to the LifeSkills Rehabilitation Unit in the hospital. That night, 10 days before her due date, Mari went into labor. Brett joined her in the labor suite after the nursing staff helped him into a wheel chair. When Mari went into the delivery room, the nurses took him in his hospital bed because he could not sit up any longer. Overjoyed and grateful beyond belief, they celebrated the birth of their second son.
On September 1, 2005 Brett was discharged from the hospital. His mother Sheila is working to replace the 19 units of blood he received with her own blood donations to help ensure the loved ones of others will always have the blood products they need.