A 3-year-old Lewes boy’s enthusiasm for life is aiding in his recovery after he lost his lower leg in a lawnmower accident earlier this month.
Zeke Clark was riding on his dad’s lap as they mowed the grass at their home June 7. When he fell off and became trapped underneath, his right leg was severed below the knee.
“My husband came running in screaming to call 911,” said his mother, Maria Clark Deforrest.
Zeke’s father, Jonathan Clark, “experienced a rush of adrenaline” and was able to flip the lawnmower off his son, according to the news release from the crowdfunding website Help Hope Live. He used his belt as a tourniquet on Zeke’s leg while the family called for help.
Zeke is the second youngest in a family of six children. His siblings are Cameron, 16; Chole, 14; Eli, 13; Quinn, 11; and 4-month-old Blake. While their mother was on the phone with emergency dispatchers, Cameron and Chloe retrieved Zeke’s limb from the yard and placed it in a bag of ice, hoping it could be reattached.
“It was pretty intense,” Clark Deforrest said. “They were very strong-minded about it. They didn’t blink.”
Due to the smoke and haze brought to Delaware by Canadian wildfires, helicopters were permitted to fly to and from certain locations only that day, according to Clark Deforrest. Zeke was transported by ambulance to Delaware Coastal Airport in Georgetown, where he and his mother were then flown to Nemours Children’s Hospital in Rockland.
Zeke never lost consciousness, Clark Deforrest said. As the family was preparing to leave their home to go to the hospital, he tried to stand up.
“He was like, ‘Daddy, get up. We have to go to the doctor to fix my leg,’” she said. “Zeke is very inspiring. He’s just an alpha male. There’s no stopping him.”
Once they arrived at the hospital, Zeke and his mother were greeted by a team of medical professionals.
“It was like ‘Gray’s Anatomy,’” Clark Deforrest said. “There were like 30 people awaiting our arrival, swooping in.”
Despite learning his leg could not be reattached, she said, the doctors helped her to recover emotionally.
“They weren’t saying ‘when he’s fine,’ they were saying ‘when he’s running,’ and that just cut right through it,” she said. “I actually, strangely, was able to come to terms with it very quickly.”
The family attends St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Lewes. With the help of their pastor, the Rev. Jeffrey Austen Ross, Jonathan Clark was also able to “turn the corner” emotionally, Clark Deforrest said.
Zeke’s father stayed with him at the hospital, where he spent a total of 17 days and underwent five surgeries. In addition to losing his lower leg, he suffered a fracture to his femur.
The rest of the Clark kids tried to go about life normally in the days following the accident. One of them had a birthday party two days later. They finished the school year, and the oldest kids took their final exams.
“This is something they’re all going to have to deal with in their own ways, in time,” Clark Deforrest said.
Because of the fracture, Zeke can’t attempt to bear weight on his wounded leg yet, but that’s not stopping him. Zeke started scooting around as soon as he left the hospital.
In fact, the day he left coincided with Nemours’ annual gathering for kids with lower extremity prosthetics, where Zeke bowled by happily scooting himself into the pins.
Now, the family is trying to get ahead of Zeke’s medical expenses. Clark Deforrest and her husband both own their own small businesses, and Jonathan Clark stopped working to stay with Zeke at the hospital.
“It’s definitely challenging,” Clark Deforrest said.
“Zeke will need on-going medical care, new prosthetics, continually changing equipment, a home that can meet his physical needs, long-term physical therapy, and continued support. This is a lifetime commitment for the family, requiring extraordinary and increasing expenses,” Zeke’s Help Hope Live page says.
As of Tuesday, about $41,000 had been raised via Help Hope Live, a community-based fundraising platform for medical expenses. Donations can be made at helphopelive.org/campaign/22355/.
“Zeke is such a force: he was walking at 9 months and running at 11 months. We have no doubts that he will again be doing this in due time and it’s through the support of our community that we have the strength to persevere through this tragedy,” Clark Deforrest said in the news release.
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Lawnmowing is a common child-parent bonding activity in the U.S. Zeke and his dad had been cutting the grass together since he was a year old, according to the news release. It was a “beloved weekly tradition.”
Many kids are fascinated by and eager to ride heavy machinery, despite warnings against it. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission urges parents to never allow children to ride on lawnmowers.
According to a 2021 study of lawnmower-related injuries to children over the past 25 years, there are over 9,000 such injuries reported annually in the U.S. Of the cases included in the study, open fractures occurred in 68.3% of patients and amputations were required in 38% of patients.
Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on Sussex County and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Twitter @MarvelMcNaught
