August Soto’s friend was driving him home after they both worked to demolish a home in the mountains.
He was heading north on Colo. 93, just short of its intersection with Colo. 128, when the driver shifted partially into the oncoming lane on July 22, according to Colorado State Patrol.
It was around 5:30 p.m. that Tuesday when August, of Northglenn, and his friend crashed head-on with an SUV. The car August was in spun off before hitting another SUV. The second SUV connected with August’s side of the car.
August was sent to Boulder Community Health while unconscious, said his mother, Amy Soto. She was about to head into an Orange Theory gym to teach a class when she heard from August’s friend’s father that the boys were in a crash. She said the friend’s father told her, “It doesn’t look good.”
“It was the worst call I’ve ever gotten,” Amy said. “As a parent, that’s like the biggest nightmare you can think of.”
August’s friend was sent to a hospital with minor injuries and is OK now, Amysaid. According to CSP, the two other drivers — neither of whose cars had any passengers — suffered minor to moderate injuries and were not sent to a hospital.
Amy immediately tried to get to her son. She got stuck in traffic on Colo. 93 trying to reach him — the road had been blocked because of the very crash her son was in. She got to the hospital but had to wait for the OK to see him.
At the hospital, a medical team put August into a medically induced coma. He had suffered a traumatic brain injury, bruised his lung and endured three spinal fractures, Amy said.
He was later transported to another facility , put on a ventilator, then slowly taken off it the next day. It wasn’t until about three days after the crash that August started to wake up — for only about a minute at a time, at first, his mother said.
He was unable to retain memories yet because of the brain injury. He was paranoid and in disbelief about what happened to him that Tuesday. But he was awake and slowly becoming coherent again.
One week after the crash, August was reading again, writing again, remembering again. By this Wednesday, Amy said, “he’s doing amazing.” August would even be able to ease his way back into school this fall, she said.
That does not mean, though, that recovery will be an easy process. He may look OK, Amy said, but TBIs affect what’s underneath. August’s personality hasn’t yet come back, she added.
TBIs can be debilitating when serious. Amy said August’s medical team said his injury landed between “moderate” and “severe.” It will take a year before his full road to recovery can be assessed; it will also take that long to gauge how full the recovery can ever be, she said.
However, he’s doing better than he could have been, Amy said.
“We are very blessed,” Amy said during only the third time she’s spent more than a moment away from August since 6:30 p.m. July 22. She’d taken one meeting with medical staff, been to the gym once for about 45 minutes and spoken to the Daily Camera.
“I could barely look at my phone,” Amy said of her time up until this Wednesday. “It’s been probably one of the most traumatic experiences we’ve had as a family.”
Besides those three brief times, she has lived, eaten and slept in that hospital room with August.
August, who is the second youngest in a family of five boys. August, who is a state-qualifying wrestler for Broomfield High School. August, who has played football, rugby, and track and field. August, who spends his winter mornings before school shoveling snow out of neighbors’ driveways. August, who, just two days before the crash, went on a fishing trip in the Leadville area with the same friend who was driving him home that night.
Amy said August has built a community around him that has shown out in droves to support him. “Every teacher, every person loves him,” she said. Friends’ mothers have dropped off food — August’s friends have offered to do the Sotos’ yard work. High school students are donating their own money, Amy said, to a GoFundMe meant to help the Sotos pay August’s medical bills.
August’s best friend, Josh Hanes, started the fundraiser imploring folks to “Support August Soto’s Road to Recovery.” By Wednesday — the day the two boys were supposed to be going to Florida for vacation — it had surpassed $14,000 in donations.
To support August, Amy will have to miss work for an extended period of time, she said. The fundraiser will help the family support August through his recovery process.
“I’m honestly blown away,” Amy said of the outpouring of support she has seen. “And I’m not one to ask for help.”
Now, August is focusing on two things, Amy said: going home and wrestling again. The medical team has told the Sotos he might be able to go home in a couple of weeks — though that has not stopped August from trying to bribe his visitors to get him out of there sooner.
Wrestling, though, may not be as simple. The family doesn’t know yet how August’s TBI will affect his ability to compete, but the prospect of being unable to wrestle scares him, Amy said.
That’s been particularly hard for the teenager. It’s been “since he was literally in diapers that he was on the mat,” his mom said.
For now, though, the Sotos are trying to keep things steady and prepare for the road to recovery and rehabilitation. They are not dwelling over whose fault the crash may have been, the cause or anything else besides August.
“Our goal is just to make his life as consistent as possible right now,” Amy said.