{"id":440633,"date":"2026-09-19T03:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T03:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/440633\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T03:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T03:38:10","slug":"family-looks-for-help-with-medical-expenses-as-2-year-old-recovers-from-open-heart-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/440633\/","title":{"rendered":"Family looks for help with medical expenses as 2-year-old recovers from open-heart surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CEDAR CITY, Utah (KUTV) \u2014 A St. George family has been in the ICU today for what they call the most frightening time of their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Their 2-year-old son Silas is recovering from open-heart surgery and may have to lose several limbs.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors said there\u2019s a high chance Silas loses his left leg, and a 50-50 chance for his right above the knee. He might lose both his hands, or just his fingers. There&#8217;s also a good chance of needing reconstructive plastic surgery.<\/p>\n<p>MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/kutv.com\/news\/local\/coachs-cpr-helps-save-child-after-baseball-injury-at-practice\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Coach&#8217;s CPR helps save child after baseball injury at practice<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s been in Salt Lake for the past week, but it\u2019s been a long journey since first looking for help in St. George.<\/p>\n<p>Devonea Askey first took Silas to St. George Regional Hospital for a high fever and severe cough.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey sent us home. He still had a fever of 102.9. We went home. The next day, he was having trouble walking on his right leg,\u201d Askey, Silas&#8217; mom, said.<\/p>\n<p>Three times he was brought in and sent home under the belief it was various rhinovirus symptoms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey told us, you know, &#8216;He&#8217;s fine. It&#8217;s just the rhinovirus. He&#8217;s sore. Let it run its course,&#8217;\u201d Askey said.<\/p>\n<p>Symptoms then turned more severe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPulled the blanket off of him and the entire bottom half of his body was blue and purple, and his lips were blue,\u201d Askey said.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors ran blood tests, X-rays, CT scans and more, finding that Silas had a blood clot in his leg and his heart rate at 200 bpm. He was flown to Salt Lake Primary Children\u2019s Hospital, where a lack of blood flow gave him cardiac arrest and the need for open-heart surgery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey came to us and basically told us, you know, &#8216;This is his last chance at survival. You either pull the plug or we need to do this operation,&#8217;\u201d Askey said.<\/p>\n<p>Gabriel Martinez, Silas&#8217; dad, said the moment was overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy body couldn&#8217;t stop shaking, and I just couldn&#8217;t even really process anything that was going on,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n<p>The surgery was a success. Doctors say Silas had Strep A that turned to sepsis. He\u2019s recovering now but awaiting news on having to lose any limbs.<\/p>\n<p>His parents say they know life will look completely different for Silas, who loved being outside, running, riding his bike and swimming. They just want him to be okay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want him to wake up and have a life, whether, you know, that&#8217;s without an arm and a leg or, you know, anything. We just want him, we want him to be here,\u201d Askey said.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez said parents should cherish the time they have with their children.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMake sure just to love your kid as much as possible, because you never know when something can happen, something like this, and it&#8217;s like a nightmare that never ends for a parent that just didn&#8217;t fully get to experience that whole life with their kids,\u201d Martinez said.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/a-fight-for-our-little-boys-life\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">GoFundMe<\/a> out because the parents have been at his side, which they said comes with unexpected medical expenses, travel costs, meals and time away from work that have quickly added up.<\/p>\n<p>_____<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CEDAR CITY, Utah (KUTV) \u2014 A St. George family has been in the ICU today for what they&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-440633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}