BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB/Gray News) – A young boy in Louisiana is continuing his road to recovery after going through a medical emergency earlier this year.
Cole Ditmore, 11, suffered a stroke six months ago. His mother, Angelina Frazier, said it happened after he had a freak accident on the playground at school.
According to Cole’s mother, he was standing with a marker in his mouth when he was accidentally hit by a soccer ball, shoving the marker into the back of his throat.
“The first thing he said to me, he was like, ‘Mom, am I going to die?’” Frazier said.
She said she was worried about him possibly showing signs of a concussion, so she took him to the nearest emergency room.
Doctors at Our Lady of the Lake St. Elizabeth Hospital spotted a small puncture hole in his throat from the marker.
The boy’s mother said that a doctor then found that Cole was starting to experience stroke symptoms.
“As the ENT [ear, nose, and throat specialist] was checking, he [Cole] started presenting stroke symptoms in front of the ENT,” Frazier said.
The mother said Cole started slurring his words, half of his facial muscles started drooping, and he struggled to move his left arm, all classic stroke symptoms.
Doctors and staff immediately started stroke protocol, gave Cole a clot-busting medication, and quickly transferred him by ambulance to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center’s Heart & Vascular Institute and their comprehensive stroke center.
He would end up spending four days in the Pediatric ICU at OLOL Children’s Hospital.
The family said it was a scary time for everyone.
“The first thing I remember was waking up around 11 or 12 and seeing my dad and my mom just all there, and I hear them talking, but I couldn’t respond and I couldn’t talk,” Cole recalled.
Later, the family learned the marker had not only punctured Cole’s throat but also compressed his carotid artery, which created a blood clot and led to the stroke.
“All the doctors tell us you see this in a textbook; you don’t see this in real life,” Frazier said.
While Frazier remembers the fear of not knowing if Cole would survive, when it became clear he was out of the woods, Cole got to work on his long-term recovery.
“I’ve been trying my best to get back to my normal self. I don’t know if I can, but I hope I can,” Cole said.
Cole has undergone six months of intense physical therapy to build back his strength, and he’s still dealing with some lingering medical issues from the stroke.
The 11-year-old has also had to cut back on sports and other activities while he takes a course of blood thinners.
However, his mom says he’s blown through every recovery expectation.
“My body tells me, you can’t do this, but my motivation tells me yes, you can, you can do this,” Cole said.
Frazier credits his healthy recovery to the hospital medical team.
“We were where we were supposed to be when we needed to be,” the mother said. “Because had he not presented the stroke in front of the ENT, they wouldn’t have been able to act as quickly as they did.”
While he still has a long road ahead, Cole’s treatment team says his attitude could be his best medicine.
“He is great. We have to slow him down. He wants to go home and do the entire therapy session at home. We have to tell him, stop doing 50 pushups in a row,” Cole’s physical therapy assistant, Haley Brasseaux, said.
Cole’s story has become an inspirational one.
“No matter what happens to you, you can always bounce back from it, and whatever happens to you, it can make you the best person you want yourself to be,” he said.
‘Mom, am I going to die?’: Boy, 11, suffers stroke after freak accident on school playground
