Two Utah girls, aged four and five, have been left with traumatic brain injuries after their father crashed his ATV while ‘going too fast’.
Van Oakes was behind the wheel, driving his seven-month-pregnant wife and their three young daughters after dinner in Midway on Saturday night.
‘I was on the dirt road, and when it turned to asphalt I was going too fast,’ Oakes told Fox 13.
The vehicle spun out and flipped several times on the road before landing.
Van Oakes was behind the wheel of an ATV, driving his seven-month-pregnant wife and their three young daughters after dinner in Midway, Utah when it crashed on Saturday night
The couple’s four-year-old daughter Kaizley (pictured) and five-year-old daughter Rylinn suffered traumatic brain injuries
Rylinn (pictured) fractured her frontal skull, which makes her at risk for meningitis due to air pockets in the brain
While Oakes and his wife Kimberly were still strapped into the ATV with their 18-month-old daughter, their older daughters had been thrown from the vehicle.
The ATV landed right on top of Kaizley, the couple’s four-year-old daughter.
‘I look under, and we’re on top of my four-year-old,’ Kimberly recalled. ‘And so I screamed that we were on top of her.’
‘We pulled her out, just this little lifeless body.’
A Good Samaritan stopped to see if the family needed help and Oakes jumped into the car with Kaizley and rushed her to the hospital.
Kimberley waited for an ambulance with their infant daughter and five-year-old Rylinn, who suddenly began to vomit blood and lose consciousness.
While Oakes and his wife Kimberly were still strapped into the ATV with their 18-month-old daughter, their older daughters had been thrown from the vehicle
The ATV landed right on top of Kaizley (left), and her father rushed her to the hospital in a stranger’s car. Then Rylinn (right) began to cough up blood and lose consciousness
It was then discovered that Rylinn fractured her frontal skull, which makes her at risk for meningitis due to air pockets in the brain.
She suffered seizures in the hospital but was recently taken off breathing tubes.
Kaizley suffered a skull fracture and had to have surgery to remove bleeding and swelling of the brain.
She also punctured her lung and kidney and broke her collarbone, according to her parents.
The girls have since been taken out of the ICU and are now stable in their hospital’s neuro trauma unit.
‘It’s a miracle they can talk,’ Oakes said. ‘They get tired quickly but in the times they’re awake they understand who I am, who mom is.’
The girls have since been taken out of the ICU and are now stable in their hospital’s neuro trauma unit
Oakes said he felt a ‘heavy burden’ for the accident, which he admitted was his ‘fault’
In one update on their GoFundMe page, it was revealed the sisters are still ‘very much in and out of it but wake every so often for about five minutes’.
‘They are both still on seizure medication but showing so much progress,’ wrote Karissa McKamey Sutton, the girls’ aunt.
‘They both have shown far more progress already than we ever imagined.’
‘We’ve been overly blessed with support and prayer. No other explanation for the rapid healing.’
‘We will still be here for testing for quite some time but things keep looking up.’
But the family said they are grateful for the community that has rallied around them and raised more than $57,000 to help pay for the girls’ hospital bills
‘The more people are finding out and the more people are praying, it’s like putting life into my kids,’ Kimberly said, ‘Which is putting life into me and my husband’
But it will take time for Oakes to move past the guilt he feels for the accident.
‘As a father, when you put your family in that kind of incident, and it’s your fault. It’s a difficult thing when your family’s your life. My girls, they’re my everything.’
‘And to put them through that, it’s a heavy burden.’
But the family said they are grateful for the community that has rallied around them and raised more than $57,000 to help pay for the girls’ hospital bills.
‘The more people are finding out and the more people are praying, it’s like putting life into my kids,’ Kimberly said, ‘Which is putting life into me and my husband.’