Injured Redmond Teen Heads Home With Smile
Less than a week after he was nearly electrocuted, an 18-year-old Redmond High senior headed home from a Portland hospital with his family Friday, with everyone marveling over his quick recovery from the severe shock.
Kyle Reed’s mother, Teresa Reed, has been keeping folks up to date on her Facebook page, and on Friday morning posted that her son “has been up since 2 a.m., reading Facebook, trying to understand everything that is going on. He is smiling ear to ear. He is ready to get out.”
Indeed, Kyle was posting again on Facebook himself, saying he was anxious to leave the hospital, which he joked was like “a prison.”
Teresa Reed said a speech therapist would be seeing him Friday morning and “then if all checks out, he will get to leave.”
“He seems back to old self,” Reed wrote. “He remembers lifting the pipe now. He is so thankful for everything everyone has done. Even though he does not understand the scope of what everyone has done for him. The doctors are amazed at how well he is doing. They did not think he would be this well. It is a miracle and thanks to the prayers our boy is back! Love you all!”
And indeed, late in the day, family member Lisa Reed posted a photo of Kyle walking out of the hospital, with a broad grin, wearing a Nike T-shirt that reads: “Damn I’m Good.”
A big welcome home is planned on Memorial Day.
Kala Tucker said the welcome home party for Kyle Reed is planned at 5 p.m. Monday at the RHS football field, “a potluck sort of thing” open to the Central Oregon community, “so if anyone can bring any hot dogs hamburgers etc. to be barbecued that would be great!”
Teresa Reed had reported Thursday that Kyle had fully awakened at the Portland hospital and did not remember what happened — but was upset that he’s not in school for finals.
“I have explained to him over 100 times what happened,” Teresa Reed said in a Facebook update. “His short-term memory is not very good at this time. He does not believe me. … The doctors say this will start to improve.”
The teen had been kept in a drug-induced coma and his body chilled to 93 degrees since arriving at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, but doctors warmed his body Wednesday as planned.
Now, his mom says, “he is eating, talking and he remembers everyone. He said he has to be back at school today for his pre-cal(culus) test. He wants to call his friends because they will ‘break him out of this place.'”
The day he was brought out of the coma, Teresa Reed said that her son “remembers everything up to getting shocked (even though he is convinced that someone shot him).” She also said he has pneumonia “and is coughing a lot, which is good.”
“His fine motor skills are a little slow, but they improved over the night,” she wrote, adding, “Thanks again for all the prayers. I will never doubt what God can do. The doctor is amazed on how well he is doing. Hopefully we will be come in the next week. Love you all!”
Meanwhile, back in Redmond, friends held a barbeque fund-raiser Wednesday evening at the home baseball game, where they raised hundreds of dollars.
Reed had been chilled to 93 degrees and he was placed in a drug-induced coma to assess any brain injury from Sunday afternoon’s accident, in which an irrigation pipe the teen had lifted during a hunting trip touched an overhead power line.
“He is shaking his head yes and no,” Kyle’s mother, Teresa Reed, posted on her Facebook page Wednesday morning. “He is (trying) to open his eyes. I told him about wizard day and he raised his hand. He loves (the) magic of Harry (Potter).”
Students at Redmond High raised over $2,000 by selling buttons and necklaces with pictures of Kyle.
“I told people that I don’t even know how to describe it,” Teresa Reed told NewsChannel 21. “It’s overwhelming. It’s amazing. I mean, we’re so thankful for everything everyone’s doing. It’s like beyond your imagination what everyone is doing for us.”
On Tuesday night, three students and friends from Redmond High, one (Austin Alvarez) whose grandparents own All Seasons RV & Marine, delivered a motor home to the family at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, so they can stay at one of hospital’s four RV sites, said Karen Bowers, mother of Austin Alvarez.
“The motor home was FILLED with gifts and donations from friends and family,” Bowers wrote.
“When Kyle’s mother told him the boys were coming to see him, a tear rolled down his face,” Bowers added.
Well-wishers also can leave comments on the guestbook at a new Caring Bridge Web page created for Reed, at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kylereed.
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Earlier story:
While a Redmond teen fights for his life at a Portland hospital after he was nearly electrocuted Sunday afternoon near Culver, stunned friends and classmates are praying, hoping and also acting, raising money to try to help his family.
Redmond High senior Kyle Reed. 18, was hunting with his friend near Culver when he saw a small animal run under irrigation pipe. That’s when he picked it up — and the end touched a live power line overhead.
The massive shock threw Reed to the ground and left him not breathing.
Friends called 911 and began CPR on the teen, continued by a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy.
He first was flown by Life Flight helicopter to St. Charles Medical Center-Bend, then to Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center in Portland, where he remained in critical condition late Monday.
“It didn’t really click until I actually got to see him when they were airlifting him out,” said Mandy Dollerhide, one of Kyle’s friends. “Then when I saw him — that was like the moment when it hit.”
Now his classmates are trying to raise money for Reed’s recovery.
They say the active teen was a star not only on the football field or the basketball court, but within the community.
“He’s in advanced leadership,” Dollerhide said. “He just does as much as possible. He was in Mr. RHS, he was a mentor in an ILS class — he does a lot for our community.”
“Absolutely devastating – i can’t even put it into words, how it affects everyone,” she said.
Now the people he has helped over the years are returning the favor.
On Sunday night, they began making buttons and necklaces with Reed’s picture on them. They are now selling them to raise money.
“A group of them last night, after we all left the hospital, on their own, went out to Walmart and Fred Myer,” said Lisa Jackson, a family friend, “They printed out the pictures bought all the materials and stayed up into the night making them.”
In just the first few hours of school, the students had raised about $400, and by the end of the day they had already brought in $700 for the Reeds.
“As a mom, it just warms my heart to see these kids coming together and supporting each other,” said Jackson.
Also, a Pappy’s Pizza fund-raiser will take place Thursday, May 31 at the Redmond location. Those with a flyer will have 50 percent of their food bill donated to help the family with Life Flight and medical expenses. The flyers are available at Washington Federal, Fifth and Dogwood in downtown Redmond.
The report came in around 4:30 p.m. Sunday of a possible electrocution on property near the corner of Ford Lane and Highway 361 (the Culver Highway), said Jefferson County sheriff’s Sgt. Jason Erickson.
Reed, a graduating senior, was with others hunting for small ground animals — rock chucks, possibly prairie dogs — and spotted one below the irrigation lines, Erickson said.
The teen lifted the metal pipe, which then touched the power line overhead, the sergeant said.
Though others in the group apparently tried to resuscitate Reed, he had no pulse when the deputy arrived on scene within two to five minutes, Erickson said.
Late Monday afternoon, Reed?s mother, Teresa Reed, posted a KTVZ.COM comment updating her son?s progress.
?He is being chilled at 93 degrees to help preserve (his) brain and neurological system,? Reed wrote. ?He is being kept in a drug-induced coma. This will give him the best chance.?
?He went without oxygen much longer than originally thought, so the next 48 hours, they are giving him the rest his brain needs to preserve brain cells that maybe damaged,? she added.
?There are no real answers right now,? she wrote. ?We are just waiting and praying he makes a full recovery.?
She expressed gratitude to ?the great friends and family he has,? adding, ?We all know how strong he is, and he is one tough kid. He has a lot to live for, and I have never seen the kid give up on anything before. He gives 110 percent at everything, so I know he will do the same with this.?
