During our 24th of July state holiday, we went to a bbq at a friends house in Lehi. As we were hanging out in the back yard we heard this huge boom like something exploded about a block or so away from their house, saw a huge gust of smoke and then there was silence. A few minutes later we watched a firetruck, police car and ambulance cruising to the scene. Then the life flight helicopter came overhead. We figured it was something serious but didn't know what, we heard a couple different stories about illegal fireworks and homemade fireworks. Turns out that an 11 year old boy was riding his bike while and adult neighbor (who happens to make fireworks for a living) was igniting gun power in a pipe bomb like device for the kids to watch it burn. Well it backfired and this kid was right in the line of fire and was hit by shrapnel. It has been on the news every day since. He has underwent several surgeries already and they are unsure if he will be able to keep one of his legs or not. The good news is they have upgraded him from critical to serious condition and as of last night he was breathing on his own.
After the explosion, Caleb was convinced that it was a T-Rex that came through making the loud boom and was making sure that everyone knew about it. Even strangers that stopped to ask us if we heard the boom when we moved our celebration to the front yard to light our fireworks.
A couple of days ago from out of the blue Caleb asked me what happened to "the guy". After I asked for clarification he wanted to know about the guy that the T-Rex got. I explained to him that it was actually a small kid that got hurt and explained several times that while it sounded like a T-Rex it was a firework type thing that exploded and hit the boy and that he was badly hurt and the doctors were trying very hard to "fix" him. He has since asked me everyday how "that boy" is doing. Lucky for me the news is keeping us up to date as well.
Last night was different though, when the story came on the news I kept asking Caleb to be quiet so I could hear it. He of course didn't then afterwards asked me his daily question about "the boy" I told him I hadn't heard because he was not listening when I asked him to be quiet for a minute. Then instead of calling him "that boy" again he wanted to know his name. I told him Bridger was his name and then he asked me what he looked like. I told him that he also missed seeing the picture that was on the news of him. At that he became very sad that he missed it and I could see some little tears in his eyes.
This morning shortly after he woke up he said that he was sad that he missed Bridger last night. I got on my laptop and brought up a local TV station website to show him a picture. At that he seemed a little better. Mike asked him why he was so upset about it when we don't even know him and he responded "I do know him."
Although, we really don't know this person or his family. That statement really touched my heart and I was reminded what true compassion was about. I think we tend to forget that in our busy everyday lives. There is a fund set up here at a local bank for the family as it turns out they also don't have insurance and the hospital stay is costing them upwards of 50k per Day. Caleb has compelled me to go donate to this fund. If anyone else wants to donate with us I would be happy to gather up the money and take it all at one time. Let me know. I will be taking Caleb to the bank with me sometime next week to do this. Mike also suggested that we have Caleb write him a letter or draw a picture that we can send to him, we may be doing this as well.
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