After a longboarding accident, patient returns to play the piano and thank care teams
(SACRAMENTO)
In August of 2020, Sharon Benton received the phone call that every mother dreads.
Her 18-year-old son, Kyle, was longboarding with a friend. He was going downhill fast when he went flying off of his board. The back of his skull hit the pavement and he sustained a fracture, six inches wide. He wasn’t wearing a helmet.
Kyle Benton was admitted to the UC Davis Medical Center after a longboarding accident.
His friend immediately called 911. Paramedics from the El Dorado Hills Fire Department arrived and he was rushed by ambulance to the UC Davis Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).
Kyle Benton spent 43 days at the UC Davis Medical Center.
As hours passed, more injuries were added to the growing list. He had suffered broken vertebrae. He also had pneumonia, a common complication of severe brain injury. His injuries put him in a coma.
“It broke my heart to see him like that,” Benton said. “But the doctors and nurses were so gifted, compassionate and kind. Our nurses were there for me, cried with me and got me through those difficult days.”
As Kyle came out of his coma and began to recover, music therapy also provided much-needed healing for him. An avid musician who plays both piano and guitar, Kyle
A lover of music, Kyle was concerned he would never be able to play again. On Friday, May 20 he played at the UC Davis Medical Center to thank and inspire care teams.
received daily visits from music therapist Tori Steeley. He would play songs with her that he enjoyed.
During his recovery at the medical center, Sharon and Kyle passed the piano in the Pavilion several times a day.
“I would talk to Kyle and tell him, ‘One day you’ll sit at the piano downstairs and play,’” Sharon Benton said. “We would take walks while he was in rehab, we would walk by the piano and say, ‘Someday, we’ll come back when you’re ready to play again.’ We said the same thing when he walked out of the hospital seven and a half weeks after his
injury.”
On Friday, May 20, Kyle Benton played the pianos for care teams at the Pavilion lobby.
“He has never given up,” she said. “He went from a .5 percent chance of survival to finishing his second semester at BYU-Idaho.” The family said their wish is for Kyle to play the piano for his medical team as a “message of hope, love and human compassion.”
Click the video below to watch Kyle play!
Watch Kyle play the piano a year and a half after his tragic accident.
