A preschool aged Calgarian continues to recover in hospital following a freak accident in July at the home of her grandparents.
Two-year-old Jaclyn Derks was building a blanket fort with her five-year-old sister on July 22 when she fell onto a drinking glass that had been left on the floor. A blanket had been draped between a bed and couch and when the young girl placed her hand on the blanket she tumbled to the ground below, shattering the glass.
“I get off the bed and I fell on the glass cup,” explained the two-year-old.
Jaclyn’s mother Kayla Rudichuk had been grocery shopping at the time of the fall and received word of the frightening situation by phone. “I could just hear the panic in her voice,” recounted Kayla. “She told me Jaclyn was being rushed to the hospital and that she had fallen on a glass. It went into her neck and there was a lot of blood and no one really knew what was happening.”
Kayla raced to the hospital to be with her daughter and encountered a chaotic scene. “I have never seen so much blood, so much pain, from a two-year-old little girl,” said Kayla. “There was so many doctors, so many nurses, so many specialists.”
Jaclyn underwent emergency surgery to have a shard of glass removed from her spine but the object had severed her left spinal cord rendering her semi-paralyzed. Doctors and specialists continue to monitor the young girl’s progress but they’ve told Kayla that the specifics of her daughter’s injury are extremely unusual.
“They did say that is one of the most rare cases in the world. There’s only one other case like this happening in the world and it was in Turkey.”
The two-year-old girl is undergoing intense physiotherapy to improve her movement and range of motion. “Physio is the hardest part,” said Kayla of the therapy sessions. “That’s when I get the most emotional because, even though it’s so positive and so good, it’s a realization that this is what the rest of my life is going to be like.”
“My once normal, spunky, crazy, fun, monkey is never going to be like that ever again.”
Kayla says Jaclyn has recently started moving her left arm and leg again and has been equipped with splints to stabilize her when she walks to compensate for the lack of strength on her left side. It is not known if the young girl will regain the ability to walk on her own again and if additional surgeries to her spine will be required.
The single mother of two remains on leave from her two jobs in order to be with Jaclyn. Her friends have created a GoFundMe campaign to help support the family.
“Kayla’s always been the kind of friend that’s just always there and she’s always lively, she’s always the life of the party, and so kind and generous,” said Amanda Lane, a friend of Kayla’s for nearly a decade. “When something happens you just band together and you do whatever you can.”
Kayla encourages all parents to pay close attention to their children around glass. “It was a freak accident obviously but these things happen,” said Kayla. “There was supervision. They were being watched but it didn’t matter.”
For additional information on the fundraising campaign and Jaclyn’s progress visit ‘Jackie’s Road to Recovery’.
With files from CTV’s Jaclyn Brown
