6-Year-Old’s Recovery from Sledding Accident Hailed as a Miracle

miracle kid, children's miracle network, ashlyn maas

“Miracle kid” Ashlyn Maas, age 5 (L) and today, age 6 (R)

It’s every parent’s biggest worry: that an otherwise innocuous and enjoyable childhood endeavor will turn deadly. In December 2009, then 5-year-old Ashlyn Maas was sledding in her backyard and slammed into a fallen tree. “A seven-inch branch snapped off into the little girl’s head, piercing through her right eye and into her skull,” AOL reports. Ashlyn’s parents rushed with their daughter to the hospital where they were told to brace for the worst. The branch “was embedded several inches in her brain, and doctors feared she would lose her eye and have permanent brain damage.”

But when neurosurgeons removed the branch, they discovered it had missed all her major arteries and that her eyeball was still intact. Within weeks, miracle child Ashlyn had completely recovered, without any visible or internal damage, much to the surprise of the medical team in charge of her care.

Michael Ryan, chief of pediatrics at Janet Weis Children’s Hospital at Geisinger said of Ashlyn’s stay there, “I’m absolutely shocked at how well she has recovered. Someone was watching out for that little girl.” Ashlyn was officially named a “miracle kid” as part of the Children’s Miracle Network.

Ashlyn’s father Wally Maas told AOL:

It’s something I wouldn’t wish on any of my enemies, to pick one of your children up like that and be so powerless that you can’t do anything. But then we left her to the doctors, to all the staff, and they were amazing. They notified us after any procedure was done. They made us feel like we were right at home, bringing us chairs, setting up beds, feeding us. And now, it’s just something that happened to her. Everything is fine. She’s just a regular, normal, 6-year-old girl.

Source and photo: AOL

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