TEMPE, Ariz. — A short ride on an electric skateboard left a 19-year-old man intubated with a traumatic brain bleed.
It happened when Aidan Dale was at ASU’s Tempe campus hanging out with friends near Palm Walk on January 29.
Each of the friends took turns trying out the electric skateboard, but something went wrong during Dale’s turn.
“He wasn’t coming back, and they went looking for him but found him unconscious, bleeding from his head,” Travis Dale said. “One of his friends found him and called 911.”
Aidan had taken a hard fall and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors intubated the Mesa Community College student after an MRI showed he had suffered a traumatic brain injury.
“The doctor looked at me straight in the face and said, ‘I don’t know what is going to happen and the neurosurgeon said, ‘There’s nothing here that I can do surgery on,’ and that was really hard to hear,” Aidan’s father said.
Doctors told the family that Aidan suffered Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI), which is a tear of the brain’s long connecting nerve fibers that happens when the brain is injured as it shifts and rotates inside the skull.
Aidan was sedated. But for several days after the accident, he would have seizures anytime they tried to wake him up, according to his family.
“I looked at our son and I just kind of in my mind kept saying, ‘God take care of my son, don’t take my son,” Aidan’s father said.
Those prayers worked. After almost two weeks, Aidan has slowly recovered.
He has been able to take a few steps with the help of a walker and is able to speak and make full conversations. His short-term memory is still a work in progress.
“He [doesn’t] have a clue why he [is] there [at the hospital], but he is alive. It was just a miracle, a complete miracle,” the father said.
Aidan’s friends surprised him with balloons and a video call on Wednesday.
“Hey family and friends, I just want to send a thank you out to all of you who have supported me in this tough, tough time, it means the world,” said Aidan during a recorded message. “I love and miss and you all and I hope to see you all very soon.”
As the family remains optimistic about his road to full recovery, the father is calling everyone to wear a helmet when riding anything with wheels.
“If you’re going to be on a stake board, a scooter, or a bike, wear a helmet, literally within a minute you could be where we are at,” said Aidan’s father. “That’s the message, please wear a helmet.”
The family has set up this GoFundMe account to help with medical expenses. They are also documented Aidan’s progress here.
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