Mum has to have leg amputated after tripping while playing with kids

A mum who tripped over while running around in the garden with her children dislocated her knee and had to have part of her leg amputated. Deanna Crump, 31, was playing with the youngsters – Isaac, one, and Jerry, three – on August 14 when she tripped and fell. The horrified mum, from Down River in Michigan, US,  described how she saw her right leg “hanging there” before an ambulance arrived and rushed her to hospital.

It was discovered she had fractured both bones that join to her knee and had multiple torn ligaments with damaged arteries. Doctors were also unable to “find a pulse” in her leg and foot.

Deanna was then rushed into emergency surgery as medics desperately tried to get the blood flowing back into her leg, only for them to then discover she also had blood clots.

Another procedure to remove the clots proved unsuccessful before she then had to undergo yet another surgery.

Medics successfully repaired Deanna’s arteries during the third operation, and she regained the pulse and blood flow in her leg and foot.

But then she started suffering internal bleeding and had to undergo her fourth surgery. This time doctors discovered several more blood clots and she once again lost the pulse in her leg and foot.

Deanna described how her toes “turning black” and she was told her leg was “dying” as blood pumping to it began to stop.

A week later, doctors told her there was nothing more they could do. The young mum then underwent an operation to have her leg amputated below her right knee.

She said: “I am super thankful to be alive and to be at home with my husband and kids. I just tripped and looked down. I was in extreme pain and my leg was just hanging there.

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“The ambulance came and picked me up as my husband, Jerry, 38, was at home with the kids, it wasn’t like he could pack the car and take them.

“When I first got to the hospital, they were trying anything and everything they could to get the pulse back in my foot – as I still had feeling in my leg and toes.

“I got there, and they gave me a CT scan right away, they said there was nothing they could do for me.

“My foot and toes were turning black, and my leg was dead. They said they would either have to amputate above or below the knee – they decided above the knee is what they had to amputate.”

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She was given less than an hour to process the horrible news before she was rushed into surgery, with the mum adding: “It destroyed me, all I kept thinking was ‘is this my life?’

“Emotionally I am destroyed over it, physically I am over a month post-amputation, and I am still in pain every day.”

Doctors operated on Deanna for five-and-a-half hours, after which she spent six days in ICU before being moved into outer ICU for three days. She left hospital on August 30.

Deanna said: “Honestly, the nurses at the hospital made it better, it was an up and down rollercoaster of emotions. They wanted me to get up and out of bed and I was there yelling saying I couldn’t, but I did it and when I did, I was very happy.” It is now likely Deanna will be fitted with a prosthetic over the coming weeks.

The mum added: “When I got home, I had a few bad days at first, lying in bed all day and crying but over the last week or so I am starting to feel better, getting up and going outside again with my family.

“Right now, I am on the rollercoaster ride going up, I can finally look myself in the mirror and I didn’t look at it for two days after the surgery.

“The day we came home it was nothing but sunshine and then halfway home it was like a monsoon, pouring down with rain – it was a beautiful mess. I did not care I was so happy to be home.”

Deanna now undergoes physical therapy twice a week and has started a GoFundMe page to raise money to put towards house renovations and supporting her family while her husband is off work caring for her.

She said: “We have a very small house, our insurance isn’t too good, and we needed so much stuff, like a ramp, a walker and to get the house ready for when I came home. We also needed enough money for my husband to be able to stay at home and look after the kids.

“The money will go towards making my car hand accessible when I can start driving, making my house more accessible – probably taking a wall down so I can get around easier and creating a new front porch.

“There is no end cap, everything we have gotten so far we have greatly appreciated.”