Youngster “Back on Track” After Train Accident

With the fast hands of a practiced drummer and lightning-quick feet, 10-year-old Christopher Solomon was ready for any competition. A regular on the basketball court, he was always out to win.

Last spring, Christopher was running on foot to school, late for a field trip and racing to arrive on time. A slow-moving train approached, but Christopher thought he could outrun it. He was wrong. As he scrambled across the tracks, the train caught him by the left leg, severing it above the ankle. In an instant, his basketball dreams were shattered.

Christopher was rushed to Harris County Hospital District’s Ben Taub General Hospital, where doctors stopped the bleeding and repaired his wound. He knew he was badly hurt, but because he was so sedated, he didn’t realize his leg was missing.

With support from his family and Ben Taub’s doctors, physical therapists and child life specialists, Christopher was able to begin his road to recovery within a few days of the accident. He attended therapy one or two times a day, but it was a difficult beginning.

“He was very emotional the first couple of times I saw him,” physical therapist Kori Kelm said. “We began by explaining his injury and assured him that in time he would be able to do what he did before as a normal kid.”

Christopher’s daily physical therapy routine consisted of special exercises to prevent contractions in his leg due to the amputation and desensitization therapy to get rid of the phantom pains (imagined pains in a limb that is no longer there) amputees normally feel.

“Even though Christopher’s leg was missing, he was still having pain in his foot and toes. We did a lot of desensitization by rubbing the bottom of his leg so his brain would pick up that his leg was gone,” Kelm said.

After only one week of rehab exercises, Christopher was able to walk 50 feet by himself with the use of a walker. After being fitted with a prosthesis, his progress continued. Christopher’s small steps turned into leaps in only a few weeks.

Since his accident, Christopher has undergone three surgeries and months of intense physical therapy to get him back on track. But, despite his ups and downs, the boy who endured so much is again ready to resume an active lifestyle.

“I bet I can beat you,” Christopher exclaimed while racing his younger brother Richard at their home in southeast Houston.

“Christopher believed he would never walk again, but is now running around and is ‘just as bad as ever,’” his mother Betty said jokingly. “Without the help of the therapists, my little boy wouldn’t have been so lucky,” she said.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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