RECOVERY
God in CONTROL by CINDY WALTON as told to HUGO BRAVO
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here’s a phrase that says, “Boys: Less drama than girls, but harder to keep alive.” Ben Walton, my son, has proved those words to be right all his life. When I was pregnant with Ben, there were complications. My hormone levels dropped at a dangerous rate, and my doctor said that the pregnancy would end with a miscarriage. My family and I prayed every day, and decided that we were going to let God take control of this pregnancy. For 20 weeks, there was a heartbeat detected during every doctor’s visit. When Ben was born, we learned that he was supposed to be a twin. The dropping hormones were from a “vanishing pregnancy.” Ben was the twin who survived. When my son was growing up, he was always that boy who was somehow getting hurt. Even as an adult, Ben had some bad accidents at his construction job. So, when I got a call last July that something had happened to him while he was out bike riding, my first thought was, “Of course it did.”
The fall That night, Ben was on the property of our family friend Timmy. They were riding ATVs and motorbikes out in a field. It was
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his first time on those types of vehicles, but in the early summer evening and away from traffic, no one expected any type of danger. At 10 p.m., Timmy’s wife Libby called me and said, “Cindy, I need to tell you something, but you need to sit down.” Hearing her say that made me stand up right away. Libby said that Ben had lost control of his motorbike. Unable to operate the brakes, he slammed his feet down on the ground, as if trying to stop a regular bicycle. This shifted his weight, causing him to fall headfirst into a rock bed, six feet down. Though he was able to get himself up, the group all agreed that he needed to get to the nearest hospital, which was 40 minutes away. “The hospital said his injuries are too severe. They’re going to life flight him over to University of Kentucky Hospital,” said Libby. Because we had firefighters and health professionals in our family, I knew what a life flight was. My son was being transferred to a major hospital via helicopter, and I was two and a half hours away from him. I told my husband Stan, who was a truck driver and away from home, what had happened and that I was going to UK Hospital with our daughter Nora, Ben’s older sister. I texted the Majors Angie and
Herb Carter, who, up until a week ago that day, were The Salvation Army pastors at the Center Hill Corps in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I work. I also texted Envoys Gina and Bradley Harris, our new pastors who had not even met Ben.
The injuries At the hospital, I waited in the room where they said Benny would soon be. Timmy was also there, beside himself with guilt for what had happened. I wasn’t angry at him; Ben is not a little boy. He’s a 21–year– old man who can make decisions on his own. Plus, Timmy loved my children as if they were his own; he had warned Ben to wear a helmet, and Ben chose not to listen. As we were talking, the doctors wheeled in my bloodied, banged–up son. They tried to explain the extent of Ben’s injuries, but I needed Nora, an EMT, to translate it for me. Ben had suffered a skull fracture and shattered the whole orbital bone around his eye, which had been completely engulfed by the injury. He had broken his collarbone and his shoulder. Part of his head had been scalped and had developed blood clots, causing a hematoma. Though he never lost consciousness, he could only remember what had
Volume 9 Number 3, 2023