'Miracle kid' has face rebuilt after her near-fatal crash caused by father smoking pot
By Julie McMahon | [email protected]
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- When a 4-year-old girl's face and skull were shattered to pieces in a crash on the State Thruway, doctors mended the bones together with sugar-based compounds.
Peyton Bean, of Clay, was airlifted by Mercy Flight from the Sept. 25, 2014, crash in Ontario County to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, where she spent 11 days on life support in an induced coma and five more days recovering. She was admitted as a level one trauma patient, the most serious, said Dr. Walter Pegoli, one of the first doctors to see her.
Peyton's face and head had to be reconstructed in a 7 1/2-hour operation. She underwent a second operation to have her eye socket replaced. She used a wheelchair for a month because she broke her right leg.
Until she's a teenager, Peyton will have yearly visits with her plastic surgeon to ensure her face continues to heal and grow correctly. Doctors expect she will require at least one more operation before she's an adult.
Peyton's recovery was so remarkable that the hospital named her a "Miracle Kid," in a series about its most resilient young patients. She was a poster child for the grand opening of Rochester's new Golisano Children's Hospital. The children's hospital and Strong Memorial are part of the University of Rochester Medical Center network.
Peyton suffered 14 different injuries - some of which are listed as "multiple fractures" in medical records - when she was in the back passenger's seat as her father drove her from Clay to Canandaigua for a visitation ordered by Onondaga County Family Court. Her father, Bryan Tanner, 25, was smoking marijuana in the car before he lost control and hit a tree.
Peyton Bean, of Clay, was airlifted by Mercy Flight from the Sept. 25, 2014, crash in Ontario County to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, where she spent 11 days on life support in an induced coma and five more days recovering. She was admitted as a level one trauma patient, the most serious, said Dr. Walter Pegoli, one of the first doctors to see her.
Peyton's face and head had to be reconstructed in a 7 1/2-hour operation. She underwent a second operation to have her eye socket replaced. She used a wheelchair for a month because she broke her right leg.
Until she's a teenager, Peyton will have yearly visits with her plastic surgeon to ensure her face continues to heal and grow correctly. Doctors expect she will require at least one more operation before she's an adult.
Peyton's recovery was so remarkable that the hospital named her a "Miracle Kid," in a series about its most resilient young patients. She was a poster child for the grand opening of Rochester's new Golisano Children's Hospital. The children's hospital and Strong Memorial are part of the University of Rochester Medical Center network.
Peyton suffered 14 different injuries - some of which are listed as "multiple fractures" in medical records - when she was in the back passenger's seat as her father drove her from Clay to Canandaigua for a visitation ordered by Onondaga County Family Court. Her father, Bryan Tanner, 25, was smoking marijuana in the car before he lost control and hit a tree.