Injured Westfield teen receives rehab in Colorado

By AMY ADAMS
news@readthereporter.com

On Saturday, Aug. 24, at around 1 p.m., April Phillips got a call every parent dreads.

“Corban’s hurt! He can’t move!”

Phillips immediately called 9-1-1 as she and her husband Matt took off running to the neighbor’s house where their son had been jumping on the trampoline with a friend.

A gymnastics coach at Wright’s 360 Movement Academy in Westfield, Corban had been practicing a gymnastics flip when he landed head down. The 16-year-old immediately knew something was terribly wrong because he was in tremendous pain but could not move and was having trouble breathing.

“I’m so thankful the Westfield Fire Department built their new station so close by because they arrived within five minutes,” Phillips said.

Emergency workers transported Corban to Ascension St. Vincent’s Hospital Emergency Room for Level 1 Trauma.

“It was probably the scariest sight I’ve seen in my life,” Phillips said.

Tests revealed that Corban had suffered a fracture and offset of two cervical vertebrae, which led to a more than two-hour surgery to decompress his spinal cord and stabilize his neck with plates and pins.

Corban spent just over a week in ICU and another week in an orthopedic trauma unit, narrowly avoiding intubation for breathing issues.

During that time, the Phillips family saw a significant amount of support from the community, including Corban’s rugby team, the Westfield Shamrocks. A friend started a GoFundMe to garner financial support for the family.

Through the fundraising efforts, word spread around the area, and Phillips was contacted by both a woman in Westfield who had previously worked at Craig Hospital, a neurorehabilitation center near Denver, Colo., and a man from Carmel who had been a patient at Craig.

Over Labor Day weekend, one of Craig’s admissions directors contacted the Phillips and spent more than an hour of his personal holiday time to talk with the family about what Craig could offer them, which included 60 days of inpatient care with eight hours a day of therapy five days a week and 40 days of outpatient care two to three days a week, plus a teen group and planned outings. Corban was supposed to get his driver’s license this month, and Craig has therapist who can work with him on adaptive driving.

“As soon as Corban heard about it, he said, ‘That’s where I want to go,’” Phillips said.

With only 93 beds available, Craig Hospital is very selective about who they bring into rehab; however, Corban was approved to receive care there and began his therapy on Thursday, Sept. 12.

“Currently, he has no movement from the waist down,” Phillips said. “He has a lot of movement from the waist up, but not in his hands. He is just starting to be able to move his fingers.”

Therapists have fit him for a power wheelchair and a variety of adaptive aids.

“That in and of itself really upset him,” Phillips said. “He doesn’t want to be treated like someone who is disabled, but the hard reality is that he is.”

Students at Wright’s 360 Movement Academy, where Corban is a coach, held a lemonade stand to raise money for the Phillips’ family’s expenses. (Photo provided)

As it turns out, Craig Hospital is in network with the health insurance Phillips has from her work with Zotec Partners in Carmel. Currently, Phillips is on unpaid leave per the Family and Medical Leave Act. Right now, her full-time job is being present with Corban and learning everything she can about his recovery and care. As it is vital that Phillips keeps the health insurance that is covering Corban’s rehab, she has requested that at the end of her 12 weeks of leave, she be provided with a laptop and allowed to work remotely, getting her 40 hours in as she can throughout the week.

Matt’s employer, Justus Property Management, has offered to provide the Phillipses with a first-floor, three-bedroom, two-bath apartment rent free for a minimum of a year. They are looking into making the apartment compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards of Accessible Design. The move from a two-story home will better meet Corban’s needs when he leaves rehab. However, that means that Matt and Corban’s sister Caelyn, who is a student at Westfield Middle School, are dealing with finishing up some home improvement projects and downsizing to prepare for a move while Corban and April are in Colorado.

“It’s one thing to go through something like this accident and life change, and it’s one thing to move to a new house,” Phillips said. “It’s another thing to do both at the same time.”