Wayne and Courtney Cramer were counting their blessings Sunday.
Just five days earlier, their son Colton suffered a medical incident at Redland Middle School where CPR and AEDs were used to keep him alive and a medical helicopter flew the seventh grader to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham.
“He is back to being himself now,” Colton’s father Wayne Cramer said Sunday. “We have been walking the hallways for about 45 minutes at a time. He is talking. He is back to correcting everybody about football and sports and everything else.”
Things didn’t look as great Tuesday afternoon. Colton, a seventh grader at Redland, had been playing basketball during PE class and sat down with three friends. He slumped over.
Wayne said several miraculous events occurred in the next few minutes that saved Colton’s life. The friends realized the 13-year-old wasn’t pranking them and ran to get help. Colton was soon laid on the floor by the PE teacher who started CPR. After the school nurse brought in a defibrillator and school officials called 911, Colton’s brother Brodie called their father Wayne, who was working in Pelham.
“He called me and I told him to hang up and call his mom,” Wayne said. “I needed to get out of work.”
Courtney works in downtown Wetumpka and arrived at the school Tuesday as first responders were arriving.
“He was breathing by the time she got there,” Wayne said. “He wasn’t conscious.”
The father received a call from the school not long after speaking with Brody.
“A few minutes later they called back saying they had him back breathing but he was not conscious,” Wayne said. “(Courtney) got there when he was still there with the school nurse and PE teacher helping him out.”
School staff performed several rounds of CPR and administered several rounds of AED shocks to get Colton breathing again before a medical helicopter transported him to Children’s Hospital.
“They are really the ones who stepped up, doing what they needed to do to give him a chance,” Wayne said. “Doctors here in Birmingham told us they are really, ultimately they are the reason he is still here because of what they did. If it weren’t for them, this would be a totally different conversation. I appreciate them so much.”
It left the staff in shock. They reacted appropriately but were shaken.
“It scared us to death,” Elmore County Schools superintendent Richard Dennis said. “It really shook up the staff there.”
Just getting to Birmingham for high level medical help was the first step. The road would be long and the future was still uncertain Tuesday evening.
“They put him on a 96-hour ice cap to relax everything,” Wayne said. “They said it is the best thing they could do for someone like this who went through a cardiac arrest. It basically puts your body into a deep rest, kind like hibernation. They put him in a sedated, paralyzed state to keep him from moving, shaking.”
Wednesday morning Colton was starting to cool down. The plan was to do imaging and tests on Saturday to figure out the best course of action.
But Colton was having no part of it. Just 24 hours after slumping over in Redland Middle School, Colton was changing the plans of doctors at Children’s Hospital.
“He was pretty much, ‘No I’m coming off this and started waking up,’” Wayne said. “He started responding to the doctors — squeezing hands, lifting a foot. They were amazed at it. He showed several doctors he could do it.”
The ventilator was removed. By later in the week, some imaging was done and plans for a future surgery were laid.
“There is still some stuff we have to go through,” Wayne said. “As far as now, it is a complete 180 degree change from where we were when we got that phone call Tuesday.”
Colton’s family gives all the credit to school staff. They managed his situation and more.
“With a 1,000 things going on and everything happening so fast, they took care of my child and the other students there at the same time,” Wayne said. “This is a traumatic event for us but it is also a traumatic event for the other students who watched this transpire.”
The Cramers said the Redland community and Elmore County have reached out in support.
“We have had help from everybody, the school, the community,” Wayne said. “There have been prayers. Everyone was like what we could do at the time. The prayers are what did it. There are people in the community I have never met and they are messaging saying they are praying. Elmore County has a great community in making sure everyone is OK.”
The events surrounding Colton’s medical episode serve as a lesson that life is short. Wayne said the family wants everyone to understand that. He has shared with those at Children’s Hospital the Cramers are a tight-knit family.
“We always have been,” Wayne said. “We have always been the ones when we drop off the kids at a bus or school, we tell them we love them. We want everyone to do that. You don’t know what the day holds or what tomorrow will bring. I don’t care how old your kid is or if they think it’s not cool, you got to tell your kids you love them. You don’t know what might happen.”
According to the Redland Middle School PTO Facebook page, a GoFundMe page has been started to help the family with medical expenses and allow parents to stay near the student in Birmingham while getting treatment.
