Spooked horse kicks 4-year-old in head, hospitalizing him. ‘Strongest little cowboy’
Days after a little boy was kicked in the head by a startled horse, he remains hospitalized but is making improvements, according to his Utah family.
Houston Hampton, 4, was on his family’s farm in Redmond when a horse kicked him in the forehead on June 23, according to KUTV.
Hampton’s parents told ABC 4 he had “passed through the horse pen” and the horse got spooked.
“I got the phone call that no mom should ever have to get,” Hampton’s mother told KUTV.
The boy was taken to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, according to ABC 4.
Hampton’s mom, Kodi, took to Facebook on June 23 to share that her son was in surgery, adding that doctors told her Hampton only survived the incident because “his skull fractured, giving the swollen part of his brain a place to go.”
Doctors temporarily removed his skull cap to allow the child’s brain to heal, the Facebook post said.
A plastic surgeon was also recruited to help repair the “laceration on his forehead.”
On June 24, his mother posted this update on Facebook: “They ended up removing 5% of damaged brain tissue from his frontal lobe. These next 72 hours are crucial.”
In another Facebook post that day, Hampton’s mother said, “He is such a little fighter. The surgeon came and told us that considering the situation, the imaging from today looks better than he does to us on the outside.”
On June 26, doctors removed Hampton’s head dressing and his parents “were thrilled with how good it looked,” according to a post on Facebook.
The little boy was “mostly stable” as of a June 27 update by his mother on Facebook. Doctors added a low dose of medicine into his IV to “combat the swelling in his body,” but the boy “didn’t tolerate it for very long before his heart and blood pressure dropped again.”
After switching the medications, Hampton’s numbers increased, and on June 28, doctors plan to “wean his sedation” and perform an MRI “on his head and neck,” the family shared on social media.
“He’s the strongest little cowboy we all know,” the Facebook post read.
Redmond is about 140 miles south of Salt Lake City.
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