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| Kalli Haas, 6, after she was attacked and bitten by a dog at a birthday party. |
Kalli was rushed to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where she underwent extensive reconstructive plastic surgery for injuries to her face, including the repair of her facial arteries.
Surgeons were unable to repair her veins, so she spent five days undergoing a rare “leech therapy.”
Kalli spent eight days in the intensive care unit and two days in the trauma ward. Her mother, Jessi Ballman, said she expects Kalli to face several more reconstructive surgeries as she matures.
“Right now,” said Ballman, an Oxford native, “it’s a waiting game.”
On the day of the incident, Ballman was at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky., on a bus trip. She was notified about the accident by her ex-husband, Cris Haas, at 2:30 p.m., but since she couldn’t leave Lexington, she arrived at the hospital seven hours later.
She asked her ex to text her a photo of Kalli, but because of the extent of the injuries he refused. He didn’t want her to “freak out,” she said.
She said Kalli’s face looked like “a firecracker went off in her mouth.”
In the hours following the surgery, Ballman’s top priority was her daughter’s appearance, but now she’s concerned with “emotional scaring.” She said Kalli has had a couple of “traumatic flashbacks.”
The days Ballman spent in the hospital, conversing with other parents, some whose children were facing life-and-death surgeries, taught her a life lesson.
“We never had to lose our child,” said Ballman, who noted the bite missed her daughter’s left eye by about one quarter of an inch. “If it had hit her neck, she’d been gone in a heartbeat.”
Kalli wasn’t able to return to school, but she was promoted to the second grade, and she recently was cleared to swim this summer.
“She’s an inspirational girl,” her mother said.
(Middletown Journal - May 27, 2011)
