Man injured while topping tree upgraded to serious
Vancouver resident became a grandfather on the day of accident
Thursday, February 25, 2010
On the same day Jason Williams was hospitalized with a serious head injury, he became a grandpa for the first time.
“He doesn’t even know he’s got a granddaughter,” said Williams’ mother, Dee Williams, who said the infant’s name is Ava Noel Foreman.
The 39-year-old Vancouver man was rushed to Southwest Washington Medical Center after a tree he was apparently topping Wednesday fell on him. The accident was in the 9400 block of Northwest Ninth Avenue, in Hazel Dell.
He suffered a fractured skull and lacerations to his face.
Williams’ condition was upgraded from critical to serious, a hospital official said Thursday.
Dee Williams, who lives in the Orchards area, had called The Columbian from the hospital, while waiting for her son’s MRI results to return.
Thursday night, Williams said her son was stable, but doctors remained concerned about swelling in the brain during the first two to three days after the accident, and possible long-term damage in the form of small hemorrhages.
But she said medical workers told her that, where there was damage, her son could relearn things using different areas of the brain.
“We’re just praying that the Lord will keep that at a minimum,” Dee Williams said.
Doctors were keeping her son sedated and comatose intentionally, and said they planned to insert feeding and breathing tubes, she said.
She said several doctors and other medical workers were working to help her son, and also spending time explaining his situation to her.
“I just think they are superb,” she said.
Favor for a friend
Williams had been trimming the tree as a favor for a friend, his mother said. He was not a professional tree-cutter, as had been speculated. “He was just a jack-of-all trades,” she said.
Dee Williams said she was proud to learn that her son was wearing a harness. He was not, however, wearing a helmet.
“The tree fell in the wrong direction, I guess,” she said.
Williams is the father of two grown daughters and a 17-year-old son, and as of Wednesday, grandfather to the newborn.
He graduated from Evergreen High School.
He plays electric bass in three local rock and heavy-metal bands, including Freak Muther, and was planning on attending a music festival in Texas next month.
“He was all excited,” Dee Williams said.
The family is accepting donations via the Jason Williams Donation Fund at all Columbia Credit Union locations to help defray Williams’ medical costs.
Bob Albrecht: 360-735-4522 or bob.albrecht@columbian.com. Columbian staff writer John Branton contributed to this report.
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