A birthday break
He turned 13 in the E.R. with a leg fracture, but it didn't slow him down for long.
An emergency room is hardly an ideal place to celebrate your 13th birthday, but that’s where Christian Hanlon of Spring Lake Heights became a teenager on January 1—and just where he needed to be.
That day, explains his mother, Carol Hanlon, the family returned to New Jersey from a New Year’s ski trip in upstate New York and headed straight to Monmouth Medical Center’s emergency Department. The day before, Christian had suffered a broken leg when he was hit by an out-of-control skier on Hunter Mountain.
“The clinic at the mountain put him in a temporary cast and advised us to see an orthopaedist as soon as possible,” Carol says. “Christian had been in significant pain since the accident occurred and endured an extremely uncomfortable three-hour car ride returning from New York. And to add insult to injury, January 1 was his 13th birthday.”
“But once we arrived at Monmouth Medical Center, he was immediately brought into the ER without any wait or delay,” she adds. “The nursing staff could not have been more accommodating in dealing with christian. They immediately placed him in a comfortable room and addressed his pain, and the physician staff attended to him personally in an extremely prompt and professional manner.”
Noting that her son is an “awesome skier,” she says the crash broke his tibia “clean in half,” but says he has since recovered completely and has returned to his active lifestyle, which includes biking, running bases and skimboarding (a sport similar to surfboarding, but using a smaller board). She credits the exemplary care he received at Monmouth’s Emergency Department and is grateful to the “caring and knowledgeable staff ”—including orthopaedic surgeon Marc Menkowitz, M.D.—that attended to him.
“There’s nothing worse than a parent seeing her child suffering or in pain,” she says. “The monmouth ER staff was able to quickly allay my anxiety over christian’s condition and make us both feel confident and at ease, knowing that he was being well taken care of."
Monmouth’s Emergency Department, which treats more than 15,000 children each year, is staffed by pediatricians with fellowship training in pediatric emergency medicine and supported by physicians with specialty training in a host of pediatric areas.
“As a designated Children’s Hospital, we see a high volume of pediatric patients in our Emergency Department,” says Catherine Hanlon, M.D., chair of emergency medicine at Monmouth. “And we have specialists in every area of pediatric care available to consult with or examine patients.”
