At 31 years old, Mitchell Mast had been working his family’s 450-acre dairy farm since he was old enough to trail alongside his father. Now an athlete, coach, husband, and father of his own young children, he was the picture of health and healthy living. He clearly knew - and was living - his priorities: faith, family, and farm. A completely random
accident rocked that idyllic picture on November 1, 2023.
Mitchell fell, hitting the edge of a table, and broke the right temporal bone in the front of his skull. This most fragile bone surrounding the brain is intertwined with arterial blood flow, so immediately, an artery bleed began between the brain and the skull. He suffered a series of seizures as he lay lifeless on the floor.
Thirty minutes away, at UPMC Western Maryland, Neurosurgeon Dr. Kheder Ashker answered the on-call page: Prepare for a patient with a traumatic brain injury, quickly
declining, intubated and 100% non-responsive. Within 5 minutes, Dr. Ashker was in the
Emergency Department, and he noted that our OR team was extremely prepared and
waiting. He underscored that time is critical for this type of injury, and said, “We are
trained for this. We know what to do. We actually have two surgical teams on call and
ready at a moment’s notice to do what is necessary to save a life.”
Our farmer’s wife, Sara, arrived just 10 minutes after the ambulance, and began to
journal each step. Being a family grounded in faith, she reached out to family and
friends for prayer and began sharing Facebook posts. Her first post said, “When I
arrived he was already getting a CT scan. Thanks be to God for the swiftness of the staff
where he fell, the wisdom to call the rescue squad, the promptness of the trauma unit,
and the presence of one of the area’s best neurosurgeons. Surgery lasted over 3 hours.
The plan was to only open a small piece of his skull to let out the blood, but they found
it had begun to clot, so a larger opening was needed. The brain had actually begun
collapsing, but once pressure was relieved it began expanding again.” It struck her that
we began taking care of her husband before we even knew his name.
One long, anxious day later, on November 2, Sara posted that he was holding his own
body temperature, a good sign. They were hoping to extubate him, another positive
step. And they did, but in his confusion, this very strong young man gave our folks a
pretty good fight during the process.
On November 3, Sara continued to ask for prayers, saying progress was very slow, but
she noted, he was now able to sip water. Still confused on many counts, as traumatic brain injury patients are, he wanted to leave to “get back to work!”
On November 4 he awoke much more lucid. He remembered they had bought new
cows, and wondered if he still needed to go pick them up. He was able to take a call
from his children, all 4 of them talking and excited, reassured to hear dad’s voice. And
he said the hospital had kept him a ridiculous amount of time - three days from his near-fatal fall.
On November 5, just four days after arriving at UPMC Western Maryland 100% non-
responsive with a traumatic brain injury, he was able to go home. November 7, Sara shared her emotional gratitude with family and friends, posting: He is doing so well. The plan is to remove the 30 staples in 3 days. I reviewed his reports from ER, OR, and ICU, and am overwhelmed, all over again, by just how close he was to such a different outcome.
It's been just a year since the accident which nearly took his life. In September, family
and friends gathered for a huge pig roast, rejoicing in his recovery. Dr. Ashker shared
how wonderful it was to be part of such a joyous occasion – to be part of a group of
– nearly 300 people – who came from miles around to celebrate their friend. He said,
“I’m glad I was on call, here, when he needed me… needed us.”
Mitchell has had a lot of time to contemplate, and says, “The hardest thing for
me then (and now) was coming to grip with the fact – constantly wondering – why my
life was spared. I will never know why, but I will never forget and never stop thanking
GOD for giving me a second chance.”
Never one to seek the limelight, he allows us to share his story because, as he
says, “Telling my story is a great opportunity to share with others about the amazing
care I received at UPMC Western MD and how through my faith and my family’s faith, God healed me. I can make something good out of this by sharing my story.”
As far as dreams for the future… he says, “I look forward to seeing the growth of my
family. I want them to stay true to my faith, which will hopefully become their faith. I
want to pass this on to them. This is the utmost importance to me. If my children want
to farm, I will be happy to support them. If they don't want to farm, I will still be happy
and support them. Seasons come and seasons go. Some are plentiful, some not so
much. My end goal for my family is that they may all see who GOD is and know HIM.
And his parting remarks: “No matter what happens, if we look hard enough, we can see
some good. Ultimately, the end of my life is not here on earth, it is heaven. Raising the
kids… I’m so grateful to be here to see them grow up, to be their father and Sara’s
husband."
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