A September to Remember: When Communicating a Crisis Gets Personal
By Genma Holmes
My son, Cornelius, days after his accident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
On September 17, 2019, around 3:30 a.m., I was catapulted into another world when I received a frantic call to come to Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s adult emergency room. Without knowing any details, I knew the situation was bad because it involved my middle child and youngest son, Cornelius. As I raced to the hospital, the prior few weeks I had spent with him flashed through my mind. He was employed full-time and had re-upped to continue his military service and was on the shortlist for a possible deployment that he seemed somewhat excited about. I had attended his swearing-in ceremony, which was very meaningful to me. He was looking forward to becoming a new homeowner and was scheduled to close on a home in a few weeks. He was also elated over the prospect of becoming a realtor. He was a busy young man making his mark at the age of 28. His future was as bright as the stars above. I was one proud mama!
The road to recovery was long, with doctors telling us that Cornelius might never be able to walk again.
That “mama pride” kept me from collapsing after I walked into the emergency trauma unit. There was no sign of a young man with a bright future on the trauma table. I saw a mangled body with limbs dangling from sockets, wounds with gaping holes oozing with blood, pink flesh where it should have been brown skin, and a face that I only recognized my son’s eyes. I asked the attending nurse, “He was not in Iraq, what happened to him?” I said in utter shock as I was looking at him on the table. Iraq and Afghanistan came to mind because that was the only thing I could relate to that could produce so much damage to the body at once. It was not in Iraq, but down the street, where my son suffered catastrophic injuries from a workplace accident when a 2,500-pound sulfur bag blew up in his face. He received 2nd and 3rd degree burns to his upper body, multiple injuries, and deep lacerations to his lower body, especially his knees and legs. At the time I was staring at him on the table, I had not received the news that he probably would not walk. When I grabbed his hands to let him know we were going to get through this, he moaned through barely-there lips, “Mom, I have no face. It is gone! Look at me Mom. I have no face.”
