SO. Firefighter Dad Told First Responders ‘I Have a Kid in the NICU … Don’t Let Me Die.’ They Ended Up Coming Home Days Apart
NEED TO KNOW
- Caleb and Hayley Halvorson’s son Hudson arrived nearly two months early and spent 112 days in the NICU
- As the couple remained focused on their son, Caleb, a firefighter, suffered burns and injuries when a garage collapsed on him while fighting a blaze, which landed him in the hospital as well
- Fortunately, both father and son were recently discharged within days of each other
Over a month after an accident left him badly burned, Texas firefighter Caleb Halvorson was discharged from the hospital — and just four days later, his son Hudson, who spent 112 days in the NICU after being born at 27 weeks, came home too.
“I thought when I saw him again, I was just gonna break down,” Caleb, 26, tells PEOPLE of the emotional reunion, “but I couldn’t stop smiling.”
“We knew it was gonna come with a bunch of challenges with my injury, but it was the win we needed,” he adds.
Caleb and Hayley, his wife of nearly five years, were expecting Hudson to arrive on Sept. 14, but their first child was born nearly two months ahead of schedule — and weighing just 1 lb., 9 oz.
“I had a really bad placenta,” says Hayley, 27. “It was really small and it wasn’t formed correctly. I went in for that 27 week checkup, and Hudson had really limited blood flow. His heart rate kept dropping.”
“There was no amniotic fluid,” she adds, “so they admitted me right then and there.”
After his early arrival, both Caleb and Hayley were regularly visiting Hudson at the NICU until their life changed on Sept. 3 when Caleb was summoned to battle a residential structure fire.
As he was spraying down the fire, the entire garage suddenly collapsed on him, leaving him trapped under debris for about a minute and 45 seconds, which he says felt like an eternity.
“I didn’t feel like I was gonna die because I couldn’t breathe,” he says. “It was because I was so hot. The beam that was laying across my chest and on my neck pushed me looking at the fire, and I couldn’t move at all.”
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First responders initially had trouble pulling him out due to the weight of the debris.
“I feel my officer trying to lift that beam off of me. It didn’t budge an inch,” Caleb says, “Right then I was like, ‘Okay, is this it? This is how I go?’ “
When Caleb was finally yanked out, his mask and helmet were gone. “I’m screaming, ‘Get me outta here! Please. I’m burning! Get me out!’ And I don’t know how they got the pack off me” he said. “They tried to stand me up and I couldn’t stand. I kept saying, ‘My leg is broken.’ ”
As first responders dragged him to the sidewalk before being airlifted for medical attention, he remembers trying to relay the most important information. “I was like, ‘I have a kid in the NICU. Please don’t let me die. Call my wife, please. Tell her I’m out. Give her the rundown,’ ” he says.
Hayley was leaving her mother’s home to go visit Hudson at the NICU when she got the call about Caleb.
She later received an update that the CareFlite carrying Caleb had landed and that he was being taken to Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. “I knew, if they’re taking him to Parkland, it’s bad,” she says.
When he arrived, Caleb remembers feeling knocked out and heavily medicated.
“They’re like, ‘Are you in any pain? Where’s your pain?’ ” he says. “I just kept remember saying like, ‘My butt is on fire. and my back is on fire right now.’ “
That’s also when he learned that first responders popped his shoulder back into place on the scene and tried to do the same with his knee as well. “I don’t remember it,” he adds. “I think I was just in so much shock.”
In the burn unit, he says that treatment involved a lot of scraping and scrubbing in the burn tank. “I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and bawling. I wake up in the middle of the night because I know they’re gonna wake me up at six in the morning to go to the tank,” he says.
“I’m lucky and blessed to be alive and not have brain damage or be paralyzed or anything like that,” he adds. “It could have been so much worse.”
For Hayley, who is also a nursing student, driving to regularly visit Caleb and Hudson at two hospitals 40 miles apart was exhausting.
“It was hard because I felt guilty when I was with Caleb and not being with Hudson,” she says. “And then when I was with Hudson, I felt guilty not being with Caleb.”
After spending 34 days in the burn unit, Caleb returned home on Oct. 6. Four days later, Hayley brought Hudson home from the NICU.
“That was the big thing that we were both looking forward to this whole time,” says Caleb.
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Caleb, who still has at least three more surgeries to undergo, says he’ll still continue firefighting once he recovers from his injuries.
Bu he admits that he can’t help but feel like the accident was a kind of blessing in disguise because now he’ll be able to spend more time with Hudson at home. “I’ll be able to see him and be with him and watch him grow and take his first steps and not miss anything,” he says.
Both Caleb and Hayley have been touched by the support they received from their relatives, friends and the firefighting community both locally and outside of Texas.
An online fundraiser, Help a Hero, has generated nearly $170,000 for the family.
The couple says they would like to help give back and help other people after the generosity they received. “It’s gonna help us out so much,” Caleb says. “It’s a huge blessing and we’re able to get the care that we need.”
As for the future, the couple is looking forward to celebrating the holidays as first-time parents. “That’s what I keep saying: I just wanna get to Christmas,” Hayley says. “Hopefully by then he’ll have his knee surgery, and I’ll have some free time around Christmas and we can just relax with our baby.”
