On February 28th, 2018, three year old Robert was pulled from a stock pond on our property, non-responsive and with no heartbeat or respiration.  Our oldest daughter began CPR.  Robert’s grandmother (an advanced practice nurse), the police, and the ambulance crew all continued resuscitation efforts while Robert was transferred to a nearby hospital.  Robert was revived and spent 37 days in the hospital.  Robert left the hospital a very sick little boy.  Neural storming had left his body bent backward such that his rear end almost touched the back of his head. 

Throughout Robert’s stay at the hospital we begged for Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) to stop the reperfusion injury in Robert’s brain and stop the neural storming.  This was denied as HBOT is ‘off label’ for brain injury.  The day we left the hospital we transferred Robert to a private HBOT clinic in Marrero, LA.  The clinic is run by Dr. Paul Harch, LSU School of Medicine.  Dr. Harch is one of the world leaders in the use of hyperbaric medicine.  (www.hbot.com)  After Robert’s second dive/second day of treatment his back was straight!  After his third dive/third day of treatment Robert was smiling.  By the end of his first week he was laughing at his siblings during a facetime conversation.  If only we could have gotten HBOT in the first days following Robert’s drowning.

Now, almost four years after Robert’s drowning, we are continuing to research and pursue therapies and treatments to bring our boy back. It is our hope that using this website to share our experience and research will help others with brain injured children.

We’re now six years post drowning. A friend made the following update video showing Robert’s progress.

(This is Robert’s story in a nutshell and is a placeholder for a more detailed version yet to be written.)