Pencil Lodged in Boy's Eye; Pencil Lodges In Boy's Eye, Close to Brain
ROMANS: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. We have a very special guest this morning. His name is Keegan Tinsdale. He's 4 years old and he lives with his family in Mesa, Arizona. Nine weeks ago, he was practicing writing his letters at his grandma's house, sitting at the table when he fell off his chair. The little guy's pencil wound up lodged inside his eye socket and then deep into his head. Take a look at this brain scan. The white spot there you can see is the lead of the pencil. Doctors say he came within one-sixteenth of an inch -- one-sixteenth of an inch from death. Keegan, his dad, Heath and his mom, Heather, are with us live this morning from Phoenix. Good morning, you guys. And our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, she's joining us live from the CNN Center in Atlanta. Mom, let me ask you first how this happened. He's writing his letters like a good little guy should, and he slips off of his share, and right away -- he was at his grandma's house, right? Right away folks knew something was wrong. Tell me what happened?</s>HEATHER TINSDALE, KEEGAN'S MOTHER: He was at my mom's house and he was practicing, because he was supposed to start preschool the next week, and he actually was writing his letters and fell off the chair. When it happened, no one knew it happened. My mom thought just the tip of the pencil was in his little eyebrow right there. No one knew the entire pencil was in his eye.</s>ROMANS: So what did she do? Did she call an ambulance? She knew something was wrong. She called dad. Dad, you're a --</s>TINSDALE: Calmed dad.</s>ROMANS: You're a local firefighter. So when you got there, what did you see?</s>HEATH TINSDALE, KEEGAN'S FATHER: She actually brought him over to me. I was at home, and his baby brother was sleeping at grandma's house. She loaded him up, brought him to me. When he got to me he was real pale, vomiting and -- didn't look very good. When I looked at his eye, his eye didn't look right. His eye was off to the left a little bit. Not really reacting very well.</s>ROMANS: As a firefighter, you knew to look in his eyes to see what the reaction was and you knew that something was up. You loaded him up to the car and you took him to the hospital?</s>TINSDALE: Well -- I started to head to the hospital. It was a little later in the afternoon, and the hospital is in traffic a little bit. I actually stopped at the closest fire station and had those guys help me out a little bit.</s>ROMANS: All right. I want to talk a little more, Heather, about what the doctors told you when you finally were starting to get this looked at. Had they showed you pictures of this brain scan? We just looked at some of those pictures. But when they were showing you the pencil inside there, what were you thinking?</s>HEATHER TINSDALE, MOTHER OF KEEGAN: I was freaking out, because no one no what it was. We kept calling my mom and she's just kept telling us, it was the tip of the pencil. And then we couldn't figure out what exactly was in his eye. None of the doctors knew. So I -- then you see how far it went down in some of the scans and then you get nervous, because it's right by the brain and --</s>ROMANS: It didn't go into the brain, right, Heather? It just -- I mean --</s>HEATHER TINSDALE: No, it went right by.</s>ROMANS: I can't decide, Heather, if this was the unluckiest little kid or the luckiest kid I've ever met.</s>ROMANS: I mean, the chances of having the pencil go through right through that soft tissue but not hit anything major, you must be horrified and relieved at the same time.</s>HEATHER TINSDALE: Yes. It was definitely -- it was insane. It was the craziest thing we've heard.</s>HEATHER TINSDALE: I mean, you just look at him.</s>ROMANS: He looks like a great little kid. He's wearing glasses, really just to protect his eyes, right?</s>HEATHER TINSDALE: Yes.</s>ROMANS: Does he have any eyesight loss? How's he doing?</s>HEATHER TINSDALE: He does. He has a little eyesight -- he has 2400 vision in one eye. But he's doing good. He's tracking better. He's actually -- he's back to his normal self. He's playing hockey again and he's back to school. So he's adjusted so well.</s>ROMANS: And, Keegan, when you were at Cardon Children Medical Center -- Keegan, I don't know how talkative you are. 4 years old, that is a tough age, but -- especially for predictability of toddlers. But, Keegan, did you get to meet some hockey players when you were at the hospital?</s>KEEGAN TINSDALE: Did you see the hockey players? Who did you meet? Who did you meet?</s>KEITH TINSDALE, FATHER OF KEEGAN: Did you meet some favorites (ph)?</s>TINSDALE: He's shy.</s>ROMANS: He is so shy. I'm telling you, I got kids that age. They would never even sit there. I want to bring in CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. She's in Atlanta this morning. Elizabeth, how crucial was this surgery in removing this from this little guy's eye? This must have been a pretty delicate procedure?</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. A call out to Lisa Consuelo (ph), who was his surgeon at Cardon, because that pencil, Christine, was about a millimeter and a half away from his internal carotid artery. If it had gotten to that artery and poked it, he could have died. He could have bled out. So in the surgery, if she had made one false little move, she could have put it -- the surgeon could have put into that artery. But she didn't. She got it out safely. She said when she took it out, there was a gush of blood, which made her obviously, extremely nervous. But it turned out it was just blood from the initial injury. It wasn't blood from that internal artery. And she controlled the blood. As you can see, he was fine. It's interesting. We asked Dr. Consuelo, was this a complicated surgery, and she said, no, not really, it came out pretty easily. It was about half an hour. The real sort of anxiety time was just making sure that she didn't nick that artery.</s>ROMANS: Elizabeth, you're a mom, too. All the things you could think of that could happen to your kids, this is not one of them. How many times have you heard your mom say, you better slow down, you're going to poke yourself in the eye? I'll tell you, this little guy was just sitting there writing his letters, Elizabeth?</s>ROMANS: Unlucky and lucky at the same time.</s>COHEN: Right, he wasn't even running around anywhere. The thing is, you never know. Christine, as the mother of three boys, you will not be surprised to hear that --</s>ROMANS: Oh, great. Says the mother of girls. Elizabeth Cohen, thank you. Keith, Heather and Keegan Tinsdale, we thank you so much for bringing your story this morning. We are so glad that it's working out, and we hope he can recover more of that eyesight, and everything works well for him. He's a cute little guy. Looks tough. Thanks, guys. Have a great day.</s>TINSDALE: Thank you.</s>KEITH TINSDALE: Thank you.</s>ROMANS: By, Keegan.</s>KEITH TINSDALE: Say bye, Keegan.</s>ROMANS: Oh.</s>ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: That's a great story. It's always a miracle, growing up as boy, and with my boy friends, how we made it this far without serious, serious injury, when you think of all the near misses we had.</s>ROMANS: The day's still young, Velshi.</s>ROMANS: All right, top stories just ahead and today's "Romans' Numeral," 49 percent. Here's a hint. It's all about getting your name and message out there. It's 49 after the hour.