Saving Peyson’s Arm: Skilled Surgeons, Attentive Therapists, And The Harris Family’s Journey

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

For almost five months now, the Dade County community has been following along with one Rising Fawn family’s journey to save their daughter’s arm. A traumatic accident almost took the left arm of 12-year-old Peyson Harris, but with the dedication of skilled surgeons, her arm was rebuilt. Through many surgeries, uncertainties, therapy sessions, and doctor’s appointments, Peyson (daughter of Colt and Candace Harris) has proven her mettle.

The Harris family welcomed relatives to town for this year’s Fourth of July weekend, and on that Sunday, July 6, Peyson (11 years old at the time) and one of her cousins went riding in a side-by-side on the family’s Rising Fawn property.

With Peyson behind the wheel, the pair attempted to jump a ditch, but when the vehicle hit the side of the ditch, the steering wheel jerked out of Peyson’s hands. The side-by-side rolled over, and she jumped out, but her left arm was stuck in the moving vehicle. “It drug me through the entire field,” she recalls.

Her older brother was one of the first on the scene, and he says Peyson’s only concern was for her cousin. Thankfully, her cousin had stayed in the side-by-side and walked away unscathed.

Peyson’s injuries were extensive, and she lost a lot of blood. She had a broken ankle, severely damaged tibia, and an elbow that was “basically missing” in Candace’s words. She not only had broken bones; she had missing bones, muscle, and skin.

Dade County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived before the ambulance and put a tourniquet on Peyson’s arm, and the ambulance took her to Erlanger. She went straight into the trauma unit and then into the first surgery.

While the other injuries were serious, Peyson’s arm was the big question mark. Fixing the tibia was a complicated process, but nothing the doctors couldn’t handle, but at first, no one knew how to save the arm.

Candace remembers having serious conversations with the first surgeon who assessed her daughter. “He was honest with us that he couldn’t fix her arm. The radial head of her bone was completely missing. He said it was probably lying in the field somewhere. All of these bones were fractured, shattered. Muscle was missing and some had died. He was preparing us for amputation. That’s when I lost it.”

In the midst of shock and disbelief, Colt and Candace told the surgeon not to amputate yet; they were going to think and pray. So, the surgeon cleaned Peyson’s arm up as best as he could, addressing the degloving injuries and putting a wound vac on the arm. He also cleaned up her leg and put a wound vac on it too.

“My husband and I kept praying,” says Candace. “We were dead set on not rushing amputation.”

The day after the accident, they met Dr. Bryce Cunningham who said he could rebuild the arm but couldn’t promise that this would prevent amputation. It was worth a try.

After Cunningham “built” the arm, plastic surgeon Dr. Jimmy Waldrop did the muscle and skin grafts needed to complete it, using muscle from Peyson’s back and skin from her legs.

Peyson lost a lot of blood during the accident, and the family lost count of how many blood transfusions she had. More surgeries ensued to address each problem and clean out dead muscle, and the family lost count of surgeries too, but Candace estimates that there were eight or nine.

Peyson spent several weeks in Erlanger’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and a month and three days total in the hospital. She doesn’t remember much from the first week because she was so heavily medicated. Candace decided to keep the worst of the situation from her but soon learned that her daughter was capable of being involved in decisions and wanted to know every detail.

Candace explains, “She was scared of surgery and being put under, and I didn’t want her anxiety to be worse, so I thought we don’t need to tell her all the details. Her reaction when she came back from the muscle graft and the skin graft broke me. That’s when I told her ‘Moving forward, I’ll tell you everything.’ She made the comment that it would’ve been better if they had just taken her arm, because it was just a lot to take in.”

Peyson recalls coming out of surgery and feeling a burning sensation in her legs, so she looked down and saw the scars from the skin graft surgeries. “It ruined part of my body that people see almost every day. It made me really upset that I didn’t know what was going on. I think it would’ve been easier on my life now if they would’ve taken the arm, but I’m happy we saved it because it’s doing so well. Anytime we have a doctor’s appointment, they say it’s better than it was.”

At the time, no one knew how much function her arm would regain, so she wondered if the pain and surgeries had been worth it. However, working with physical therapists Jenny Ehlers (MOT) and Jennifer Durham (CHT), her arm function has gone from zero percent (unable to move her arm or fingers) to about 50 percent. On a grip strength test, she’s gone from zero to six pounds.

Peyson hasn’t been in school this semester because of the large amount of time spent in appointments, but she hopes to go back in January. On top of the physical pain, she’s walked through mental, emotional, and social challenges.

“When I first came home, I didn’t really realize how hard it’d be.” She remembers one of the first times she was able to go out with friends again. “We went to a football game and got snow cones. My friends wanted to run around while eating our snow cones, but I couldn’t eat it with one hand while running around. That was one of the hardest moments. Luckily, one of my best friend’s moms said, ‘Let’s sit down, and then you can go and play.’”

Peyson says her biggest supporters are her parents, siblings, grandparents, and five best friends: Collins, Ida, K.A., Kaidyn, and Landry. These friends stand ready to help Peyson navigate school once she can return.

While in the hospital, Peyson had nightmares reliving the accident. She’d wake up screaming and almost jumping out of bed. She saw a therapist at the hospital to help with this and work through a season of depression. She went through a phase where she didn’t want to eat. Missing milestones, like the start of school and sports seasons, was hard, and the PICU had visitation guidelines that prevented her from seeing her younger siblings.

“She went through a depressed state, which is totally normal,” says Candace, “but when her friends would come, she would light up, laughing, wasn’t in pain, didn’t need or want anything. We had some amazing nurses in the PICU who would sneak her friends in for just a few minutes.”

Slowly but surely, Peyson has been able to do more and more everyday tasks with her left arm. “Now, I’m able to do my own hair and get dressed and pick up my phone and play one of my favorite games with my friends.”

Her leg has healed beautifully, and Peyson says her arm usually isn’t in pain. “I’ll sometimes wake up the day after therapy, and it’ll be sore. It does hurt if we’re stretching it, but usually it’s not as bad as it was.”

Dr. Waldrop released Peyson in mid-October—a big milestone after some complications and the long healing process from the skin and muscle grafts.

Currently, the goal is to reduce the size (caused by the muscle graft) and swelling of the elbow, increase its range of motion, and check nerve damage in the fingers. The elbow is much smaller than it was after all the surgeries, but it’s still got a ways to go, so Peyson now has a compression sleeve.

In mid-November, they started using a crank brace to work on increasing the range of motion which was stuck at 70 degrees. “It’s not going to be comfortable,” says Candace. “As the mom, I’m anxious because of what all she’s about to go through. She’ll have to sleep in it, and it’s slowly going to try to force the arm to straighten.” If this doesn’t work by early January, another surgery may be needed.

Peyson will also go through a nerve study because her ulnar nerve was damaged. Her left pinky and ring finger have no feeling, and she can’t move them, so the study will show whether or not the nerve is healing. Yet another surgery might be an option to help the nerve heal.

As if navigating the pre-teen years wasn’t hard enough already, Peyson is also learning to not let stares or hurtful comments about her scars and arm affect her. “Anytime I go somewhere, I always get looked at. People make weird faces, but I’ve learned to just take it. It does bother me, but not as bad as it used to. Also, all my friends say, ‘Don’t worry about it, you’re so pretty and confident,’ and that’s what makes me more confident.”

She even dealt with rude comments from strangers about her arm, but she’s handled it all with grace and strength. Being able to laugh it off, stay confident, and be kind just proves Peyson’s maturity. Candace said, “To me, it just shows how strong she is and her faith. She has always been my toughest, strongest child. She’s a warrior.”

One recovery highlight was the first time Peyson could pick up her youngest brother. Candace remembers wondering (early on in this journey) about everyday things that her daughter might not be able to do. “I thought about all the things you don’t think about when your kid’s 11. I thought, ‘She’s going to have kids one day, and I want her to pick up her baby and wear a wedding ring,’ but those things that seemed near impossible are almost within reach.”

The family found inspiration by watching videos of people with missing limbs who still have impressive abilities. Candace said, “We watch videos all the time of people with both arms missing, one arm missing, legs missing, and what they can do. Peyson loves to help me in the kitchen, and that can be challenging when one arm does not want to work. I encourage her to find her own way. She cracked an egg with that arm, singlehanded!”

Always having been athletic and active, Peyson was especially concerned about being able to play her favorite sports again, like volleyball, basketball, cheer, and tumbling. One day, she decided to try a one-arm cartwheel again. “I just kept falling and falling and falling. I went to my friend’s house, and we practiced. I landed it, and that was one of my biggest accomplishments. I was so excited and happy, and we made up our own dance with it.”

At first, her parents were concerned about trying activities like this again, but now Candace says, “She’s got to live life. I put her in a bubble for so long after the accident. We had one surgeon basically tell us, ‘Give it up. Put her in something different.’ Then, we saw her plastic surgeon. He let us know that this skin will never be as strong as normal skin, but with that said, he looked at her and said, ‘You can trip walking right out my door and break your other arm. Is that going to stop you from walking out my door? Live life.’”

Throughout this journey, the Harris family has been blessed by the community. “We had so, so many people—family, friends, and even complete strangers—reaching out and donating and bringing meals,” says Candace.

People from states away heard about Peyson’s story and reached out with encouragement. Staff throughout the hospital followed along with her journey, and another patient who witnessed the early hours of the family’s situation prayed with Candace and Cole before leaving the hospital.

One nurse who wasn’t even on Peyson’s floor made bracelets that say, “Let’s just get it done.” Early on, Peyson kept saying “I can’t” when overwhelmed and in pain, but she eventually switched to “Let’s just get it done,” so this became the rallying cry for her support team.

The EMT who drove Peyson to the hospital the day of the accident also followed along with her progress and found out that Peyson wanted a pet bearded dragon. She told the family that she and her husband wanted to buy one for Peyson, and she started a bearded dragon fund that the community donated to.

Then, a few days after Peyson returned home, the EMT surprised her with Luna, her new pet lizard. Luna gave Peyson something to care for and pour into while away from her normal life routine, and she learned everything she could about bearded dragons and how to care for them.

Candace concludes, “I’m a stay-at-home mom, and my husband missed two months of work during this time, and we got by because of others’ kindness. This world can look so ugly at times, but this journey has definitely shown us that amazingly good and kind people are still out there!”