Scrapes and bruises are a pretty normal aspect of life when raising young boys, but sometimes those little accidents can require a quick, collaborative intervention.
“You get started, you push it down, and then you hit the gas, and then you go,” said Malachi Vis while getting ride to ride his dirt bike.
“He's kind of our own little mini ‘Evel Knievel.’ He's always been a daredevil doing everything that he can to test his boundaries,” said Ashley Vis, Malachi’s mom.
Which is why she wasn’t overly concerned when Malachi crashed his dirt bike and was injured. She just knew she probably needed to get him to the hospital as quickly as they could.
“There was dust everywhere, and I couldn't see it. Then he went the opposite way. I mean, I was going straight, and he was going back, and then we crashed,” said Malachi, recalling the accident.
“In my mind, I saw him bleeding, so I thought it was a cut on his leg and a broken arm, and we splinted up, and we'd be to ortho on Monday, and it would be good. By the time Micah had carried him into the emergency room, and I parked the vehicle, Dr. Adams at Hegg Memorial Health Center was calling for the helicopter.” Said Ashley.
“Yeah, I was nervous and scared,” said Malachi.
Malachi's wreck left him with a broken arm and a severely broken leg.
“It's what people traditionally would call a compound fracture, or we call an open fracture. What happens is the bone breaks and it pokes out of the skin. When you're out riding a dirt bike, it gets mud and dirt all over it. And so you have a badly broken bone, stripped of muscle, contaminated. And so there's a lot of risks for the bone not healing, for infection, those types of things,” said Geoffrey Haft, MD, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon with Avera Orthopedics in Sioux Falls.
Because of the severity of the injury, Malachi was confined to a wheelchair and was in for a long road to recovery.
“It was scary, and I got eight surgeries,” said Malachi.
One of those surgeries was with the Avera plastic surgery team.
“Our job in that one is to provide coverage, which is healthy tissue. And in his particular case, it was a couple muscles from his lower leg that we rotated around to cover the orthopedic hardware and bone place. And then on top of that, to put a skin graft for his completion of his reconstruction,” said Barry Martin, MD, FACS with Avera Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
“Without that (surgery), without Dr. Martin's expertise with this flap, this leg does not survive,” said Dr. Haft.
With the big surgeries behind him, Malachi's focus became working to strengthen and heal his newly restored leg.
“We couldn't have had a better care team for him. Friends, family, doctors... absolutely the best. Dr. Haft was fabulous. He never once showed, I mean, he showed emotion in a good way when we were done and everything was healed. Dr. Martin was fabulous. He has the best bedside manner. I mean, they're excellent. They really are the best,” said Ashley.
One year later, this little daredevil is back to doing what he loves most with some added precautions.
“Oh yeah, I have to wear jeans, a helmet, and gloves. It's jeans, helmet and then boots,” said Malachi.
“His leg is working great. His nerves are working. The muscles are strong again. He can play sports. He can run. He can jump. Hopefully he'll slow down a couple of degrees, but we like him to do what he likes to do,” said Dr. Martin.
“He's our little go-getter. So for him to be able to do his go-getting again, we're ecstatic for that. I'm anxious to see what God has planned for him in the future because I think it's something in the medical field, I'm pretty sure, or along the lines of helping other people. But it's just cool to see everything. See God's hand in everything, like absolutely every aspect of it,” said Ashley.
