Hunter Heater.Photo: GoFundMe
“Hunter was severely wounded from head to toe,” reads aGoFundMe pagestarted to help pay for his medical expenses. “He suffered massive lacerations and wounds that were [just] inches from main arteries. Luckily he was able to receive immediate medical attention and rushed to a hospital.”
In the end, Hunter received more than 200 stitches on his arms, face, legs and neck, and more than 40 staples in his skull.
The GoFundMe states doctors also had to put the muscles in Hunter’s leg and arm back together and that he suffered from swelling in his brain, which had since gone down.
“Hunter is 9 years old and full of life,” the GoFundMe states. “He is emotionally, mentally and physically scarred from this traumatic event.”
Hunter is also suffering from memory loss and is receiving physical therapy to learn how to walk again. He may need plastic surgery in the future for his extensive scars.
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Hunter has since returned home to his family, who have been updating the GoFundMe to share the physical and emotional aftereffects of the attack.
“He’s having a very hard time adjusting,” Hunter’s mother, Rachel Heater, wrote on Nov. 13 about her son’s attempt to try to go back to school. “His flashbacks and freak outs have escalated this week. Along with his night terrors.”
Rachel shared that her son is working with an “amazing therapist” and the family may try pony therapy. Still, the boy is coming to terms with both his physical and emotional scars.
“We also had to explain to Hunter that [his] medication will help reduce the appearance of the scars, up until this point he thought that once they healed that he would look normal, like the way he did before the attack,” Rachel writes. “He was heartbroken when he realized that might not be the case.”
source: people.com
