Hoping for a Miracle

David and Victoria Zucker measure the three-plus months since their son’s accident at Disneyland not by days, but by missed moments.

Halloween came and went with no costume for Brandon. Christmas passed without his eager tearing of wrapping paper. And today, on Brandon Zucker’s 5th birthday, he cannot blow out the candles on his Scooby Doo birthday cake at the rehabilitation hospital in Orange where he lies in bed most of the day.

“Those are all the things I think about,” said Brandon’s mother, Victoria Zucker, in the family’s first public comments since the Sept. 22 accident that left Brandon severely brain damaged.

“Is he going to talk to me again? Is he ever going to drive a car? Is he ever going to go on a date? Will he be able to see? . . . As long as he’s still fighting, I can’t give up on him.”

Victoria and David Zucker view their son as a gallant battler for his life--not surprising for a boy who used to run around his house wearing oven mitts, punching at the air like Rocky, the hero of one of his favorite movies.

Each day, even as they spend hours by their son’s bed, the Zuckers miss the tough, scratchy voice that always used to exclaim, “I have an idea!”

Brandon fell out of the vehicle he shared with his mother and older brother on the Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin and was pinned beneath the following car containing his father and grandmother. Though Disneyland disputes it, state investigators said the Zuckers were loaded improperly into the “taxi cab” with Brandon, the smallest in the group, seated closest to the open entryway. Investigators also found that the lap bar was probably not completely lowered. The Zuckers have sued Disneyland for negligence; they declined to discuss the accident itself.

For three anguishing months, they have been trying to adjust to a life now filled with doctors, attorneys and sleepless nights.

One recent day, Victoria Zucker poured two glasses of milk in the kitchen, one for Nicholas and one for Brandon, before she remembered that Brandon wasn’t home.

The family used to eat at the dining room table, where everyone had a designated seat. Now, David Zucker said he can’t bring himself to eat a meal there because of the empty spot. On Christmas Day, Nicholas cried even as he opened his presents. “I miss my brother,” he said.

“I want to get a paralyzing medication, then wake up tomorrow and Brandon’s OK,” Victoria Zucker said.

At first glance, Brandon looks as though he might be OK, might be the same cheerful boy with dark hair and big brown eyes.

He wears a green T-shirt emblazoned with a dinosaur picture, and gray sweat shorts that hide the diapers underneath. His short-cropped hair hides the cut on the back of his head, but not the lump of the brain shunt inserted to help reduce swelling. Brandon’s hands are balled tightly in a fist. He clutches a rolled washcloth. His feet are twisted. His leg muscles spasm.

His eyes often are open, but blank and unfocused. His father claps his hands in front of Brandon’s eyes; there is no reflexive blink.

His private room at HealthBridge Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital in Orange is decorated with personal touches: Brandon’s favorite “Tweedy Bear,” photos of Brandon and Nicky on their scooters, and Brandon dressed up as Buzz Lightyear for Halloween.

Those are the kinds of photos Victoria Zucker doesn’t know if she will ever get to snap again.

In addition to internal injuries, Brandon suffered what doctors call “global” brain damage in the accident. He was trapped under the ride car for about 10 minutes, and for some period was without breath or pulse.

The prognosis is grim, but the Zuckers are counting on a little of Brandon’s stubbornness--a little more of Rocky--to pull through.

At the hospital, Brandon receives continual speech, physical and occupational therapy. He spends more than two hours each day with Feldenkrais practitioner Elinor Silverstein, who uses gentle movement sequences in an effort to retrain Brandon’s nervous system.

Three times a week, Brandon also travels to Mission Viejo for hyperbaric treatment. He sits in a chair on his mother’s lap in an enclosed tank that raises the atmospheric pressure so it feels like they are 15 feet under water, in an effort to help repair damaged brain cells.

They relocated from Canyon Country to Irvine to be closer to the hospital. Victoria Zucker quit her job. David Zucker, an ironworker, is on leave from his job. Medi-Cal has covered all of Brandon’s care up to now. But the family is barely scraping by financially, David Zucker said. The days are hard. Brandon often cries, sometimes uncontrollably. David Zucker kisses his son’s lips. He tenderly pinches Brandon’s cheeks. “It’s OK, buddy. Daddy’s here.”

Brandon cries and cries; David Zucker must walk away.

“It’s like he hears me,” the father said. “And he’s crying, saying, ‘Come take me out of here. Help me.’ ”

Victoria Zucker moves closer to her son. She guesses at what he might want. She suctions out his tracheotomy tube, a breathing hole that opens into his throat. They adjust his stiff body, carefully moving his limbs.

The crying stops.

Victoria Zucker has been able to figure out what her son needs. But she thinks she knows what he really wants: the same thing she yearns for so fiercely.

“I have an idea!” she sometimes whispers in his ear, echoing his favorite phrase. “Get up and let’s get out of here. Let’s go home.”