Family of Boy Injured on Ride Tells of Painful Bedside Wait

David and Victoria Zucker measure the three 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 fifth 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,” Victoria Zucker said 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.”

The Zuckers view their son as a gallant battler for his life--not surprising for a boy who would run around his house wearing oven mitts, punching at the air like Rocky, one of his favorite movie heroes.

Each day, even as they spend hours by their son’s bed, they 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 his father and grandmother were riding in. The trip to Disneyland had been a much-anticipated family outing to celebrate Victoria Zucker’s 40th birthday; the Roger Rabbit attraction was planned as the family’s last ride of the day.

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 and said that the park must find a way of closing the cutout entries to the cars and put a guard around the bottom. The Zuckers have sued Disneyland for negligence; because of the lawsuit, they declined to discuss the accident itself.

For three anguishing months, the Zuckers have been trying to adjust to a life now filled with doctors, attorneys and sleepless nights. They devote their hours to Brandon, and to his 6-year-old brother Nicholas, who fiercely misses the preschooler who was his constant companion.

One recent day, Victoria Zucker poured two glasses of milk in the kitchen, one for Nicholas and one for Brandon, before she remembered 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 car rides, when Nicholas used to talk nonstop with Brandon, he now feels lonely and bored in the back seat. On Christmas Day, he 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, as he lies in his cheerfully decorated hospital room, Brandon looks as though he might be OK, might be the same cheerful boy with dark hair and big brown eyes who grins from a family photo.

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.

Though his optic nerve is intact, he does not appear to see. His father claps his hands in front of Brandon’s eyes; there is no reflexive blink. Hearing is another matter: Sometimes, his head turns toward the direction of music when a favorite song is played--”Why Can’t We Be Friends?” by War or “Just the Two of Us” by Will Smith.

His private room at HealthBridge Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital in Orange is decorated with a motif of children fishing, appropriate for Brandon, who caught his first fish, a trout, last year.

His parents have added 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.

Prognosis Is Grim

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

Neurologists show them pictures of Brandon’s brain. White represents the damaged area, and the CAT scans make parts of Brandon’s brain look like a white cloud.

The prognosis is grim, but the Zuckers try to juggle the realities of his medical condition against their hope for the future. They’re counting on a little of Brandon’s stubbornness--a little more of Rocky--to eke through. Even the small signs are progress. Upturned lips might be a smile. Swallowing a dab of yogurt is a miracle for a boy sustained by a feeding tube.

Victoria Zucker scoffs at doctors who prod his feet, shake their heads and leave the room. They see Brandon a few minutes; she knows his every expression.

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.

The Zuckers believe that Silverstein, who has practically adopted them into her family, will be a key to stimulating Brandon’s brain. She helps them connect to Brandon, they said.

Three times a week, Brandon also travels to Mission Viejo for hyperbaric treatment. He sits in a chair on his mother’s lap inside 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. It’s hot and stifling in the hyperbaric chamber and results are yet to be seen, but the Zuckers will try anything.

They relocated from Canyon Country to Irvine to be closer to the hospital. Victoria Zucker gave Brandon’s clothes to the Salvation Army. She quit her job at Mervyn’s. David Zucker, an ironworker, is on leave from his job, but works when he can. The family is barely scraping by financially, David Zucker said. They have made it this far, thanks in large part to the community’s outpouring of support and donations. Medi-Cal is covering Brandon’s bills for now.

The days are hard. Brandon often cries, sometimes uncontrollably. It is a loud, mournful cry--so loud that hospital staff down the hall can hear him.

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 talks to him, consolingly. He keeps crying. She guesses at what he might want. With the skill of a nurse, she suctions out his tracheostomy tube, a hole in the throat for his windpipe. Hospital chief executive officer Robert Buckley said she’s like “one of the staff.”

They relieve gas that might be building up in his stomach. They adjust his stiff body, carefully moving his limbs.

The crying stops.

This is one more time that 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.”