Tuesday, Jan. 17 2012 6:24PM
Teen wreck victim making remarkable recovery
By Rob Roberts, rroberts@lsjournal.com
Michael Rosencrants, an 18-year-old Greenwood resident who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a Dec. 1 wreck, smiles at relatives on Dec. 24.
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closeHappy holidays seemed out of the question for Michael Rosencrants and his family after the 18-year-old Greenwood resident lost control of his car Dec. 1 on a wooded section of Hamblen Road.
Rosencrants, whose Pontiac G6 rolled and hit a tree, was transported to Research Medical Center in Kansas City with a bruised right lung and a traumatic brain injury, meaning his brain was swelling and bleeding.
“It was definitely watch and see,” his mother, Ginger Rosencrants, said of the next two weeks, during which her son lay in a medically induced coma and doctors treated a seemingly endless series of life-threatening symptoms.
Somehow, the Lee’s Summit West High School senior survived the brain swelling, seizures, pneumonia, an inflamed gall bladder, blood clots in the brain and right ankle, plus all of the medical procedures that were necessitated.
“But even after two weeks, we didn’t know if Michael would walk again or talk again,” his mother said.
And on Dec. 20, she and Michael’s father, Kevin Rosencrants, were faced with a new cause for concern. Three days after their son had undergone a successful gallbladder procedure and two days after a draining device had been removed from his brain, the parents were informed he had suffered a stroke.
“We thought Michael would probably have to live with us for the rest of his life,” Ginger Rosencrants said. “But, of course, as a parent you want to be hopeful.”
And on Christmas Eve, the parents’ hopes and prayers, and those of countless friends and family members, began to be answered.
As his grandparents and other relatives gathered around Rosencrants’ hospital bed, a smile stretched across both sides of his face, indicating that he recognized his loved ones and that he was regaining the use of muscles on his right side, which the stroke had weakened.
“Michael is doing great, ...” his mother wrote in an online journal that has helped friends and family keep tabs on his condition. “Just melts my heart.”
And her son was just getting started.
On New Year’s Eve, Rosencrants was moving his back as if it was uncomfortable, and his mother asked him if he wanted to be turned.
“He said ‘yeah,’” she wrote in the online journal. “I couldn’t believe it, and I think it surprised him too.”
It was the first word she had heard him speak since the accident, the mother said.
“He’s talking up a storm now,” Ginger Rosencrants said from Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, Neb., during a Jan. 16 interview.
Rosencrants, who has been undergoing therapy at the Nebraska hospital since Jan. 9, is still struggling with aphasia, a stroke-induced symptom that makes it difficult for him to find the right words to communicate.
But his speech is improving, he’s doing great with his math studies, he’s walking without assistance, and all but one of the tubes that helped sustain him during his hospitalization has been removed.
Rosencrants, who lost 40 pounds in the wake of the accident, still requires a feeding tube to help him regain some weight and strength. But he’s been eating typical teen favorites, like burgers and pizza, and is eager to return to his home, school and friends.
“We are scheduled to leave here Feb. 17,” Ginger Rosencrants said.
And, amazingly, the family is hopeful that Rosencrants will be able to graduate from Lee’s Summit West with the rest of his class this spring.
“His father and I just feel so blessed,” the mother said. “After being in ICU and a coma for darned near two weeks, for him to get this so far so quick is a miracle. But we are both Christian people, and we believe that, besides the amazing neuro team at Research, Michael benefited from the power of prayer and all the love that was shown.
“I think he could hear us the whole time, and we just kept talking to him, lifting him up. And, of course, a lot of prayers went out.”
In the wake of the ordeal, Ginger Rosencrants added, her family is viewing life with a new perspective.
“The simple things in life are really so big now,” she said, adding that one of the simple things they are grateful for is that fact that Michael is still Michael.
“A lot of times after a brain injury, a person changes,” she said. “But he hasn’t changed, except he’s even more affectionate and kind.”
Prior to his accident, Rosencrants had been volunteering with a friend at the Lee’s Summit Animal Control shelter at 1991 Hamblen Road.
Michael, who also worked at a local Price Chopper, was the lone occupant of his vehicle when it crashed. But fortunately, his friend was driving home from the shelter in front of Rosencrants and witnessed the accident. In addition to calling 911, he stayed with Rosencrants until first-responders arrived – a wait that turned into 24 minutes after the emergency personnel had difficulty finding the wreck scene on the remote stretch of road.
Once Rosencrants woke up in the hospital, many of his friends came to see him, and one of his teachers and his principal visited several times.
“The school’s been wonderful,” Ginger Rosencrants said, and her and her husband’s employers have been, as well.
Kevin Rosencrants, the meat buyer for American Foodservice in Lee’s Summit, didn’t return to work until Michael had begun his therapy in Nebraska, she said. And she has yet to return to her job at Metzler Bros. Insurance. “Fortunately, we both work for family-owned companies, and they have been awesome,” she said. “They both said, ‘Take care of your family. Don’t worry about work.’”
