By: Kali Nicole
knicole@klkntv.com
For the last three months, Eric Lomison has been on a journey in and out of hospital hallways. Luckily, it's one he can now walk.
"It was very frustrating at times because they wouldn't let me do certain things by myself when I thought I could do them on my own. They had to watch me shower and they wouldn't let me walk outside," said Lomison.
It was too risky, medically and emotionally. It was a surprise Eric had even made it this far. Back in May, the 20-year-old was volunteering at the Lancaster Even Center when somehow, in a freak accident, he fell off some equipment. He was moving under 15 miles per hour. Eric hit his head.
"His injury wasn't gruesome and blood because it was all contained inside the skull but that's also the main problem. His CT scan was one you saw and knew it was not going to be a good outcome," said Eric's doctor, Dr. Reginald Burton.
Forget talking, walking, acting like the man his friends and family once knew. Eric's chance of survival was suddenly just 30 percent. "All of our bags of tricks were open on him. He had the bilateral decompression craniotomy where we took the skull plates off. We had him on the standing bed to decrease the pressure. We took his body temperature to about 89 degrees," said Dr. Burton.
Surviving the immediate surgeries was only the first hurdle. His parents were told it was an average 29 week rehabilitation. So imagine their surprise, the hospital staff's and even Eric's when just three weeks later he was walking out of in-patient care.
Of course, more cautious to everything around him. "I just am a lot more nervous doing things like riding in a car for some reason when I'm not driving," said Lomison.
Nerves that may have never been felt again if not for the poking, prodding and experimenting done by local doctors heal the hearts of the ones around him.
Eric is feeling so good, he'll even be back at school at SCC in just a couple of months.
