What we know so far...

Hey guys!  We wanted to start a blog to keep everyone updated on the happenings with Keith's recovery. We feel so overwhelmingly grateful for all of your support and love. We have never met anyone that hasn't loved Keith, so this time is hard for us as well as everyone who knows him.

We have had a lot of questions from people wondering how he is doing and what happened. We wanted to explain what happened, as far as we know, and how he is doing now. We will be regularly updating so that everyone can keep tabs.

Keith was riding my motorcycle home from bishop interviews on Wednesday night going north on University Avenue. A 19 year old girl pulled out in front of him going left and the motorcycle struck the vehicle. He laid down the bike and ended up under the car. Her delayed reaction time caused him to be dragged under the car for a bit which is the reason he has sustained most of his injuries.

He came into the ER coherent which was a big surprise to the ER team and the cops. They said this was great news for him to still be himself. He has fractures in his skull and his head was broken open, he has many fractured ribs and will need plates in his ribs for them to heal, he also has a fractured pelvis in many places and will need screws and plates to put that back together. He covered head to toe in lacerations and bruising and will require plastic surgery on his head and face.

He was brought to Utah Valley Hospital and was there until this afternoon. The only surgeon qualified to do the surgery on his pelvis is going out of town in a few days so he was not able to do the surgery. With that being said, they had to transfer him by ambulance to the IHC hospital(great and spacious building) in Murray. He made it alright and they worked to stabilize him again.

He has been under sedation and pain medication to avoid the pain. They took him out of sedation briefly to test his motor skills and did another CT scan which showed no change from the lats CT scan which is good. He is being intubated and cannot breathe on his own at the moment.

My mother has not left my dad's side since the accident, so he has always had someone there, keeping him company. They are working on getting him more stable and getting him off of the breathing tube as well as strengthening his heart so that he can be off of some meds and breathe on his own.

We were told that they will try to stabilize him enough in the next few days to perform the surgeries. From there he will be in the hospital for weeks and then intensive rehab for months. He will not be able to stand for quite some time and will have to learn how to walk all over again. They said a full recovery should take about a year.

We are hoping that he can continue to stabilize and get better so that they can take care of the surgeries and continue his improvement. We appreciate all of your love and support and help that we have been given already. We will be opening up a Facebook page for anyone to post kind messages and memories for him to read when he is able to. Right now we please ask that no one visit unannounced. Please contact one of us on Facebook or call before coming over to the house or coming to the hospital. My dad will not be ready for visitors at the hospital for some time.

Keith is a fighter. He is strong. He has done nothing but help people and inspire people his whole life. We have been so extremely blessed this far, having him still with us today, and not sustaining more injuries than he already has. We pray that he will get through this and be himself again. We just can't wait for him to wake up and crack some silly joke.