Lucas Getting Hit by a Car - The Story

Personal

Jul 30

Written By

July 31, 2019

Jacksonville, Florida

GRAPHIC PHOTOS AHEAD. DO NOT LOOK AT THIS IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO BLOOD

But first, as today is the anniversary of the accident, we decided to go visit the hospital, get some good donuts and thank all the nurses. We wanted to tell Lucas about happened to him as he is now older and understands more. It was incredible to see how much he did remember and wanted to go see certain things. Also, wanted to teach him appreciation and how we have to thank people who do things for us.

I write this blog post mostly for myself as a memory. This story has changed our lives and I want to be able to look back and recall my feelings and emotions. Secondly, I would want this story to potentially save a child/person from getting hit or hurt by a car in the future. PLEASE ALWAYS LOOK IN ALL CAMERAS AND YOUR SURROUNDINGS BEFORE BACKING UP! BE CAREFUL AND CAUTIOUS WHEN DRIVING. My child is a lucky boy to be alive and I wish this upon NO ONE!

July 30, 2018 started off as a busy morning in the Bondarenko household. We had breakfast together as a family. After breakfast, I rushed to a wellness appointment with our baby, Mark, as he just turned six months that day. The plan for the day was very busy and I had a lot to do. I had tickets for an early morning flight with the kids to Portland, Oregon for the very next morning. I was planning to do a lot of packing and grab lunch with a good friend. After we had lunch, I headed home and my husband told me he would take Lucas with him to hang out and do some things for the business we were just starting. Eager to get home, I took out my planning lists and got to packing. Little did I know my life was about to change drastically!

About an hour after I was home, I received the most horrific call of my life. It was around 3:40 in the afternoon when my husband called, as I was putting my little baby down for a nap. As I answered the call, my husband said “Honey, Lucas just got hit by a car” with the most terrified voice. “Should I call the ambulance or should I take him to the hospital? I don’t know what to do?” he asked. I remember myself scream crying and asking my husband if he’s ok. I remember going into a complete panic mode with tears and actually scaring my baby Mark a bit. He was looking at me with his big blue eyes and knew something was really wrong. I told my husband to call 911 immediately and I’ll start packing up Mark and heading to the hospital. I remember shaking and praying to God and asking him to save my baby Lucas! I didn’t have much information yet. I didn’t know how bad it was. I knew for a fact that Lucas isn’t a wild child and I couldn’t comprehend how in the world this could happen. I knew this wasn’t the time to ask my husband either. I just wanted him to get seen by doctors ASAP. He just turned 3 years old; he was still a baby with his whole life ahead of him. So many worries and things crossed my mind. I am a pretty optimistic person, and I tried so hard to think positive and that everything is going to be ok, but truly I didn’t know.

Immediately, I posted on our family Viber message chat to pray for Lucas and said that a car just hit him. My sister in law, who lives a mile away, came and picked up Mark from me. I honestly didn’t even think about a sitter for the baby. I do pretty much everything with my kids and alone, so I was planning to take him to the hospital with me. I am thankful for her for thinking for me and picking up Mark. It would have been a really bad idea to have him at the hospital with us.

While driving, my husband texted me that they are going to Wolfson’s Children’s Hospital in downtown, so I headed straight there. This drive I will never forget. It was the longest 30 minutes of my life. I remember crying out to God and begging him to protect Lucas. I couldn’t believe this was happening. As I write this blog post, I can’t help but shed more tears. These memories are still so vivid in my head. I am not an emotional person. To get me to cry, a lot must happen. So it’s safe to say that I was a wreck. A big, big wreck. I couldn’t hold my tears back even if I wanted to.

I arrived at Wolfson’s and came in through the emergency area. You know something is really wrong when everyone at the emergency room knows you by name, before you even tell him or her your last name. “Are you Lucas’s mom? Here is your personal nurse, head this way,” I remember hearing. The situation felt like a movie scene; a movie I wanted to wake up from. I was led towards a room with glass doors and I saw about 40 doctors, nurses, surgeons all running around the room doing a million things. Before the doors even opened, I heard Lucas’s cry. I heard him screaming. I saw my husband from the corner of my eye and called him to come out. I couldn’t come in the room for a good 15 minutes. My husband came up to me and he was also a complete emotional wreck. We held each other tight and cried like never before. He kept apologizing for taking Lucas with him. He was shocked and in complete disbelief that this happened. My husband is a big tall guy; I never seen him cry in my life, besides at his dad’s funeral. He was a complete wreck, crying like a little baby. Finally, after some time I got the courage to walk into the room, and I truly almost fainted. Lucas was all in blood, I could see his skull, and his ear was halfway torn off. It was just bad. SO BAD! I could see doctors applying medication & attempting to clean him off while he was screaming. He was looking at me and I truly couldn’t help him. I felt like I was in a bad dream or a very bad scene in a horrible movie I didn’t want to watch. I had to walk away and I completely lost it, again. I remember sitting down on the bed in another room, with nurses by my side, crying my eyes out. I couldn’t believe this was happening to us. A couple of plastic surgeons came up to my husband and I and told us that they had to take Lucas in for surgery ASAP. They had to do skin grafting to close up his head. They also had to do surgery on his hand and move the skin around. They also did a cat scan, MRI, and every other test necessary to check for broken bones and concussion. I felt my stomach drop to the floor, I was shaking and so was my husband Ruslan. We just couldn’t accept this happened to our calm, quiet, little baby boy, Lucas.

3 hours later, Lucas was out of surgery and we were instantly by his side. The results from all the testing and scans were also in. EVERYTHING TESTED NEGATIVE! He didn’t even end up having a concussion!!!!! PRAISE GOD! Lucas was out and they let him "sleep" until morning. First thing he said when it was light out: “where is Marky? I want to see Marky.” So we had to arrange for Marky to be brought the hospital. The love that these two share is seriously incredible.

Basically, he had 2 surgeries the first night we arrived at the hospital on Monday and one more on Thursday. One skin grafting on head and one skin grafting on hand & stitching up the ear. ALL these surgeries were a form of plastic surgeries.

He truly couldn't get comfortable and sleep in a way where something wasn't hurting him more.

Here is a little backstory to what actually happened, based on my husband’s memory.

After lunch, Ruslan took Lucas with him on his truck to a truck store. We were just starting a new trucking business and Ruslan needed to pick up some things. Lucas loved to go to places with daddy. Spending time and making memories with his dad is still his favorite! They went to an area of town where it’s not busy, and the parking lot was practically empty. There were only two trucks parked in the parking lot; my husband’s truck (Dodge Ram 3500) and the truck that Lucas was hit by (also, a Dodge Ram 1500). Both of the shopping parties were in the store together and both came out at practically the same time. Lucas was standing next to Ruslan while he was putting things away in the trunk of the truck and suddenly Ruslan heard insane screaming and saw Lucas almost getting run over. The truck was slowly backing up and didn’t look in the back up cameras he had, to see if anyone was standing near by. The parking lot was completely empty after all. Somehow Lucas got struck by some of the underneath truck parts and was trapped at the tire of the huge truck about to get completely run over. My husband started screaming and trying to get Lucas out and away while telling the individual to stop, and drive forward. Lucas’s hand managed to be under the tire of the truck and he needed to go forward so he could get the tire off of it. Lucas’s clothes were all thrown off, he was all in blood, and he was in complete shock and couldn’t understand what had happened to him. Ruslan said he was really surprised that Lucas wasn’t crying or being hysterical right away. He asked Ruslan to put him in the car seat, as it reclines, and he wanted to lay down. At this point, the ambulance was called and he was quickly rushed to the hospital.

Today, marks a year since the accident. I cannot believe the year we have lived. It really was the hardest year of our life. I thank God for being merciful towards our family and sparing Lucas's life. I am forever grateful for my little baby boy.

“A man’s heart plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

We made many plans for our life, our year and our summer 2018. But obviously God had other things in mind for us. I truly do not know why this happened to us. I do not know why Lucas had to get hurt and suffer so much. I do not know why our life had to turn upside down. But I do believe that everything happens for a reason and I know there is a reason behind this. I may not find out what that reason is today, or soon, but maybe I will one day. I pray to God, and ask him to please let this story touch someone and only in a positive way. I know my husband and I only grew closer together during this time. Our marriage has always been really good, but this brought us together and more united like nothing else. It was incredible to watch him be such an amazing father.

During the time of the hospital stay and post recovery time at home, my husband and I dropped everything we had going on for a couple of months. (Normally, not a wise decision when you just started a brand new trucking business and invested all of your savings into it). Lucas was our top priority. It was a lot of bandage changes and doctors appointments (some almost daily and some weekly). It was a lot of tears and an incredible amount of sleepless nights. (our six month old slept better than Lucas did at this point) Ruslan was at Wal-Mart at times at 4am getting more Benadryl, as the itching from the wounds was not letting Lucas sleep. If Lucas was up, everyone was up. Sometimes he needed to be carried in Ruslan’s arms just to get some rest, and other times he was very comfortable to sleep in his car seat as that was the only thing not touching his wounds. But the thing that kept us going every day were the daily packages delivered to our door! It was so surprising and so humbling to see HOW MANY people from ALL over the United States cared for us! The story kind of ended up going viral, and people wrote me thousands of messages of prayer support, asking for my address, and just so much love. I have never in my life seen the community come together so much. People I have never met or seen were bringing my child toys. This was all amazing for another reason too; we had to do bandage changes very often, so every time we did one, we would tell Lucas if he didn’t scratch/touch his wounds, he would get to open another package. It was an awesome agreement for him and worked well for us. My house officially received every Paw Patrol item ever sold probably. Our incredible church (lscjax.org) also put us on a food train, and food was delivered almost daily. My mom flew in immediately as well, as I did have a little six-month baby to take care of as well. Stress was through the roof but we managed with God’s help. I truly and from the bottom of my heart appreciate every single person who sent us anything, brought us food, bought us groceries or did anything for us during this hard time. I know we couldn’t have done this without your love and support. We really felt it. I appreciate every single one of you. THANK YOU!!

Lucas’s physical recovery was quicker than I expected as he is so young. The doctors told us it should heal well within a 3-6 month period and it did. He still has and will have insane scarring and the hair still doesn’t grow on that part of his head. It might come later, but probably not. I am not crazy worried about the scars he has, I am more worried about him being ok. We went through some other challenges and those were hard. Another really difficult memory and it happened a lot of times, is the throwing up. Lucas would throw up whenever he was excited for something. Whether he was going to the pumpkin patch with his cousins and he was looking forward to it or just excited for some candy. His excitement would soon turn into barf and things really didn’t look pretty. It was very unexpected and just really bad. The worst time it happened was when we were flying home from Portland, Oregon. (Our trip did end up happening as I needed sooo much help from my mama and that’s where my entire family lives, but it ended up happening way later. Thanks to Delta airlines for being so amazing and changing all our flights for free). We boarded the plane, and Lucas was thrilled. Before the plane even took off, he started throwing up nonstop. I was holding my little baby in one arm and trying to catch Lucas’s throw up with another hand. I ended up asking the flight attendant for help. I was traveling completely alone and was so glad we had a layover in Seattle, where we were escorted off the plane and taken the to the nearby emergency room immediately. I’m telling you, my life is like a movie scene. The amount of airport people looking at us was unforgettable. Sitting on an ambulance bed, with two kids in my arms, all in puke and having like 15 people escort me was a day I will never forget.

When we arrived at the hospital, I really didn’t know this was happening due to his “excitement” and I wanted a second look at another cat scan. He was hit in the head after all and I needed a peace of mind. Sitting in an emergency room alone with two kids isn’t easy. Both babies were crying and life was just really hard. I needed to be strong, especially for the babies. Results did come back negative once again and we were discharged. An amazing social media friend (whom I’ve never met till this day) reached out to me and offered her place for the night as our flight got rescheduled for the next day. She made us a hot dinner and gave a place to sleep. I’m so thankful for you, Alena. That meant a lot to me. Social media is such a great tool, if used correctly.

The throwing up did subside slowly after a few months. I also did learn to inform Lucas about everything we were doing. If we were going to go to a park tomorrow, I told him about it at least 10 times, so that the excitement level wasn’t as high.

Today, Lucas is a happy little 4-year-old boy. We celebrated his birthday big time this year at a fire truck station and with a Paw Patrol Party. This particular birthday of his meant a lot to me. I really wanted to celebrate him and that we still have him with us. I truly thank God for this little smart & super creative ray of sunshine in our lives. He’s still weak at times and complains of random of things, but we are nowhere comparing to where we were before. We’ve come a long way and I truly believe he will recover and be okay 100%. I thank God for Lucas. His sweet little laugh is my favorite thing on earth. I will forever value and treasure these moments with him. I never take moments with my kids for granted and learned to never complain during the hard days. Hard days will pass and wounds will heal, but the time we spend together will never be forgotten. Hug your babies a little tighter tonight, after all, you are the most important person in their life.

I am so VERY THANKFUL for my little family. I don't know where I would be without them. Life is hard. Really HARD. Things like this happen to us when we least expect it. But I thank God that we have HIM to rely on and get through things like this with. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have Jesus in my life. He definitely helped us get through this and I always felt that peace of comfort that everything will be ok. This is what looks hand looks like now, one year later.