_6e98296023b34dfabc133638c1ef5d32-620x480.jpg "Advances in organoids could transform the treatment of spinal cord and peripheral nerve injuries")
With the help of a medical team in Chicago, a young boy who was seriously injured in an accident and who had only days to live overcame his biggest obstacle.
Earlier this year, Oliver Staub and his family were on vacation in Mexico when a truck crashed into their minivan. Of the injured, the two-year-old boy’s injuries were the most serious.
“I took him out very carefully,” said Oliver’s father, Stefan Staub. “I felt like something wasn’t right in my neck.”
Then came the grim news from the doctors.
“They already told us he would be paralyzed forever,” Oliver’s parents said. “He has a complete spinal cord fracture and brain death.”
They talked about donating Oliver’s organs and planning his funeral.
Then something surprising happened.
“They came in and said Oliver is looking better…His vital signs are perfect, we’re going to start waking him up and we’re like, ‘What? This can’t be true,'” said his mother, Laura Staub-Garcia.
After more surgeries, Oliver would be sent home with a brace in the care of his family.
The young man’s parents were determined to find him more help. His mother learned about a doctor at the University of Chicago who was researching spinal cord injuries. She approached him, asked him to take over her son’s case and he agreed.
“I explained to them that if we intervened, the risk would be very high and there is no guarantee that anything would change,” said Dr. Mohamad Bydon, professor and chair of neurological surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
The family was eventually taken to Comer Children’s Hospital.
“After going through multiple surgical procedures to reconstruct his head, his neck, his spine, his spinal cord, strange things started happening,” Bydon said. “He started moving his hand, and then he started moving his hand intentionally and frequently and to command…”
Oliver started moving his other hand as well.
“It’s notable… in people with spinal cord transection, you don’t normally see this,” the neurosurgeon said. “His young age helps.
Oliver’s parents described their journey over the past few months as “a rollercoaster.”
“We came from planning a funeral and donating his organs while he was at home, improving and moving… For us, the fact that he is alive is already a miracle,” they said.
