‘Every parent’s worst nightmare’: 3-year-old loses legs after skinning his knee on vacation in San Diego.
Beauden Baumkirchner is finally out of the pediatric intensive care unit.
The following written content by Joel Shannon
SAN DIEGO – Beauden Baumkirchner, 3, is finally out of the pediatric intensive care unit – about two months after he skinned his knee on vacation in San Diego.
In that time, he has been battling a rare and “vicious” bacteria that cost him both his legs. One of his doctors said it’s a “miracle” the boy is alive.
Beauden’s parents, Juliana and Brian Baumkirchner, have nearly lost track of the number of times their boy has gone under anesthesia – they said he has endured at least 18 surgeries since Oct. 5, when he fell off a bike and his condition rapidly deteriorated.
“It’s every parent’s worst nightmare when you’re completely helpless,” Brian told USA TODAY.
Beauden and his family were visiting California, on vacation from their home in Arizona, when the incident happened.
Doctors don’t know where the staph bacteria that infected Beauden came from, Dr. John Bradley told USA TODAY. Bradley is the medical director of Rady Children’s Hospital’s Division of Infectious Diseases and was involved in Beauden’s treatment within days of the boy’s admission to the hospital.
That skinned knee acted as a portal for the toxin-laced bacteria, which despite showing up in lab tests as a “garden-variety staph,” caused an illness similar to toxic shock syndrome in Beauden.
The day after the fall, the boy had a fever, was lethargic and holding his foot, his parents said. By the following day, he was having trouble breathing, and his fever hadn’t subsided. His knee and lip were swollen.
He went to the hospital for an X-ray, which turned into an MRI. By that point, his feet were freezing cold and his hands were clearly infected as well.
That’s when he went to the ICU, where he spent nearly two months, his parents said. Read more from USA Today.
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