Yusef's miraculous journey to rehabilitation
This article is a summary translation to English by ALYN Hospital staff of extracts of the original article, which was written by Dana Ben Shimon. Photo credit: Yoav Dodkevich.
“It was a rainy and stormy evening, Yusef fell down an elevator shaft in the dark, like in a movie,” recalls his father, Kazem. “A neighbor said that there was a child from the Jardat family who fell in a lift,” says the father. “I went down quickly and realised that it was Yusef.
The doctors told me that they couldn’t believe that he was alive after what happened.” Yusef was taken by ambulance to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, with a large fracture that split his face in two. At Hadassah, they performed the unbelievable – they were able to put his skull back together during a complicated operation. He was later transferred to ALYN Hospital for rehabilitation, with his family accompanying him throughout the process.
“When Yusef came to ALYN Hospital, he was not able to get up,” says his father. “Twice a day he underwent physiotherapy. He also received emotional care and a lot of encouragement from the staff.
Yusef underwent rehabilitation treatment, during which he got back on his feet and began walking again. “We had to teach him how to walk again because he had a very complicated leg fracture. He also had difficulty speaking because of the fracture in his jaw and we helped him with that as well, in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and he was helped to eat independently”, explains Yusef’s accompanying physician in the rehabilitation department of ALYN Hospital. “His head injury was significant, but he was lucky that there was no brain damage. He also had fractures in his skull, and it’s very rare for someone who has experienced such an event to recover relatively quickly.
Recently, as the rehabilitation process progressed and his condition improved, Yusef began to go to the school that was established inside ALYN Hospital and learned Hebrew and English there.
Of course we’re happy,” says the father. “In recent months I have barely left Yusef’s side, I have been with him all along, and his situation has improved slowly, but now he will be able to return to his family. Lately, he was able to come home on weekends, but now he will finally be able to sleep at home every day. This is the biggest relief.”
