{"id":419697,"date":"2026-01-21T00:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/419697\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T00:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T00:01:14","slug":"sinus-infection-turns-life-threatening-for-a-fort-lauderdale-high-school-volleyball-star-sun-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/419697\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinus infection turns life-threatening for a Fort Lauderdale high school volleyball star \u2013 Sun Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the winter cold season arrived and high school volleyball season approached, a stuffy nose and a headache were annoyances for 15-year-old Aedan Jones, not alarms.<\/p>\n

But days before Christmas, the Fort Lauderdale High School junior\u2019s headache worsened, and a fever set in. What happened next set into motion a spiral of events that turned a sinus infection into a brain infection and launched Jones\u2019 ongoing battle to live.<\/p>\n

With a slight fever, Jones\u2019 mother brought her typically healthy son to the urgent care, where doctors ruled out the flu and COVID and suggested Motrin and Tylenol. \u00a0For a few days, Jones felt a bit better, the pressure in his sinuses and fever easing. On Christmas Eve, though, his situation deteriorated rapidly. He awoke with the left side of his face numb, his left eyelid drooping, and he couldn\u2019t pick up his left leg to walk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we arrived at Joe DiMaggio, he looked like he had a stroke,\u201d said Jodi Washington, Jones\u2019 mother.<\/p>\n

The emergency room doctors moved quickly. They saw the droopy eyelid, the subtle facial asymmetry, and the confusion. The images from an MRI head scan came back terrifying, his mother said. There, in Jones\u2019 frontal lobe, nestled dangerously close to the areas controlling speech and movement, was a collection of pus. A sinus infection, a typically benign annoyance, had traveled through the thin bone separating his sinus cavity from his brain, allowing bacteria to seep in and spread.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to operate immediately,\u201d Dr. Dean Hertzler, a neurosurgeon at Joe DiMaggio, told Washington. \u201cThe pressure is building, and if we don\u2019t drain this, it could cause permanent damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a sinus infection evolving into a brain infection is rare in children, doctors are seeing it more often. \u201cThousands and thousands of people get sinus infections,\u201d Hertzler said.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a very small percentage that this happens to. With children, late elementary into the teens is when we see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the afternoon hours of Christmas Eve, Hertzler carefully navigated the delicate tissues of Jones\u2019 brain. \u201cThe surgery itself is much less risky than not doing it,\u201d the neurosurgeon said.<\/p>\n

First the medical team drained the pus collected in Jones\u2019 brain. \u201cIt was pretty infected, so we washed it all out, and then the ENT (ear, nose, throat) doctor went in and washed out the sinuses, and we got cultures for treating the infection,\u201d Hertzler said.<\/p>\n

As doctors moved swiftly, the South Florida volleyball community rallied, setting up a GoFundMe page<\/a> and praying for Jones\u2019 rapid recovery. \u201cAedan is a driven, competitive volleyball player who gives everything he has \u2014 to his team, his sport, and those around him,\u201d Misty Connelly wrote on the fundraising page.\u00a0 \u201cRight now, however, he is facing the toughest match of his life. Our volleyball community \u2014 and all those who know and care about Aedan \u2014 are coming together to support him and his family during this incredibly difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connelly, a fellow parent of a player on the Ocean Bay Volleyball Club, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel: \u201cAedan is a spitfire, a jokester, a fun kid to be around. He is not the tallest on the court, but he is the most explosive.\u201d She said teammates, as well as those on competing teams, want to support him. \u201cWe know it\u2019s going to be a long road ahead for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"volleyballAedan Jones takes a shot during a volleyball game in Fort Lauderdale (Jodi Washington\/Courtesy)<\/p>\n

While the surgery at Joe DiMaggio went well,\u00a0 an infection continued to spread in his brain. A few days after his Christmas Eve surgery, Jones suffered an 18-minute seizure. Another MRI brain scan found he had a big pocket of pus in the orbit behind his left eye, creating pressure.<\/p>\n

Jones was then transferred to Miami\u2019s Holtz Children\u2019s Hospital, where he could access specialists at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been in intensive care this entire time,\u201d Washington said. \u201cThey took him off the ventilator and he is breathing on his own again.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Holtz, Jones continues to fight the brain infection and has undergone multiple surgeries, including one last week. \u00a0He has had surgery to drain his sinuses again, another to remove bacteria \u00a0behind the eye, and a third in parts of the brain that affect movement on his right side. A team of doctors from various specialties participates in his medical care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had him on broad-spectrum antibiotics to try to treat the infection, and he did regain movement of the right side and the ability to speak,\u201d said Dr. Heather McCrea, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Holtz Children\u2019s Hospital. \u201cWe do surgery because antibiotics are not going to work quickly enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCrea said the bacteria in Jones\u2019 brain while at Joe DiMaggio differ from those found in his brain while at Holtz.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s likely one of the bacteria was being partially treated, but other bacteria may not be fully treated and continued to cause problems,\u201d McCrea said. \u201cNow he\u2019s on three different antibiotics at strong levels to cover anything that could be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones, the youngest of Washington\u2019s three children, had played in a volleyball tournament in Los Angeles only nine days before he landed in the hospital. \u201cHe is one of those kids who have a magnetic personality and can connect with anybody,\u201d Washington said. \u201cEven in the ICU, his personality is shining through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each day, Jones\u00a0works to resume his previous strength and abilities. He is getting physical, occupational and speech therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can talk and communicate, but he doesn\u2019t always get his words out,\u201d his mother said. \u201cHis speech is really slurred, but it\u2019s coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCrea said she is pleased to see Jones talking and walking. \u201cHe is making great strides.\u201d Soon, he will get another MRI of his brain to see if he is clear of infection.<\/p>\n

Washington said she recognizes recovery will take time and require emotional and financial support. She has been by her son\u2019s side in the intensive care unit day and night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m one of those people, I never ask for help,\u201d she said. \u201cAedan\u2019s got a really supportive family around him, and we always just kind of make things happen. But I am grateful that people really want to do something to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCrea at Holtz said she and other pediatric neurosurgeons in the U.S. are collaborating to determine why Jones and other young people have been experiencing sinus infections that spread to the brain more often in the last few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking closely at it because there\u2019s a thought that this has increased in frequency post-COVID,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are really trying to get at what has caused this increase. We\u2019ve been looking at commonalities between these cases as well as the treatments to improve care for our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doctors like Hertzler and McCrea advise parents to bring children, including teens, to a doctor immediately if they complain of a severe headache or sinus pressure. \u201cIf they have a true sinus infection, then they will likely need antibiotics to clear that and the pediatrician is the best first step for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Florida Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the winter cold season arrived and high school volleyball season approached, a stuffy nose and a headache…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[8019,2808,8017,97,2558,983,3,5262],"class_list":["post-419697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-broward-county","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-health","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}