When Keirsten Marsico saw her young son Joey for the first time after a lawnmower accident amputated his left foot, he told her everything was going to be okay.
“[After] that night he came out of surgery, of course I was in tears, and he just sort of grabbed my head in his hands and said, ‘Mom, what’s wrong?’ Marsico tells PEOPLE. “I just said, ‘I’m really sad, my friend.’ ”
On Thursday, May 9, Joey, who was just weeks away from his fourth birthday, was watching his grandfather Mark DeLuca mow the front lawn of his family’s home in Whitehall, New York, when he made an innocent decision that left him seconds put it in harm’s way.
“He really likes tractors and likes to mow the lawn,” Keirsten says of her “active little boy,” the younger of her two children.
“He likes to help and he ran up behind my dad who was driving the lawnmower. And before my mom could get to him, my dad went into reverse and everything just happened at once,” Keirsten recalls. “It was just—everything fell into place that caused it to happen the way it did.”
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She continues: “It’s been hard for all of us, but my parents just feel terrible and my dad feels terrible.
According to the family, DeLuca quickly applied a tourniquet that likely saved his grandson’s life and Joey was airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital where he underwent a series of operations on his foot, including a decision to amputate.
However, through his difficult recovery, Joey charmed his nurses and doctors and delighted his family and friends with his unusually mature perspective—not to mention his upbeat attitude.
“He’s a very strong kid,” says Keirsten, adding, “It’s almost like talking to a teenager. … He’s just very well-adjusted.”
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Keirsten Marsico
His dad, Joseph, says he’s “always been like that. Very understanding and understands human emotions and how to deal with things and other people and is very vocal. His vocabulary is far above everything else [he] it should be usable.”
During Joey’s nearly month-long stay in the hospital, the Marsicos — who also share 6-year-old daughter Gianna — split duties as they managed to establish a new normal.
“My daughter goes to school, so we try to make things normal for her,” says Keirsten. “She’s on the autism spectrum, so the routine is really helpful for her. My husband and I agreed that maybe one of us should be home with her.”
Keirsten stayed at home, “and [so] he didn’t leave Joey,” she says of Joseph.
“The other day when I was leaving Joey’s, I was crying and he did it again,” says Keirsten. “He wiped the tears from my eyes and said, ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to be sad.’ I said, ‘I know, but I don’t like to leave you.’ ”
Keirsten says the family’s Catholic faith — and the realization that this was a freak accident — helped them get through the experience.
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“My worst fear is that people will hear about this story and think: ‘Why didn’t they watch it?’ Or, ‘How could they let this happen?’ And that’s honestly something that I, as his mom, was thinking about,” she admits.
But “I just have to keep telling myself that this is all happening for a reason. For us, God has a plan for this little boy and it’s not something we understand right now, but this is his plan for him. Whether we understand it or not,” Keirsten says.
“Really, if someone else was in this situation, I would tell them it was an accident,” she says. “Accidents happen. We can’t control it and don’t ask why, because you’ll never know, you’ll just beat yourself.”
“We just have to kind of adapt and overcome what’s happening,” she says. “And we just have to be with him and be together as a family.”
On June 5, Joey was released from the hospital, returning home to his family almost a month after the accident. He turned 4 earlier this week.
His parents are encouraged by his progress — they say he will soon be fitted with a prosthesis — and marvel at how he managed to articulate his emotions and calm others through it all.
“He’s always been a special little man,” says Joseph.
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Source: HIS Education