A close family member of Arbutus Global middle school student Leila Bui says she has had one successful surgery but is due for another surgery and will remain in an induced coma for a least a week.
Bui was struck by the driver of a Mercedes on Wednesday morning while trying to cross Ash Road in front of her house. Saanich Police report she was thrown into the path of a second car which is now believed to have stopped before it struck the girl. She was rushed by ambulance to Victoria General Hospital.
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Bui’s uncle, Gavin Aitken of Saanich, said Bui underwent surgery on Wednesday to remove her spleen in order to stop the bleeding.
“The surgery went as well as we could have hoped,” Aitken said.
On Thursday she had an MRI to assess her neck and spine.
“She has a neck fracture but her spine seems to be okay,” he said. “We are so relieved about that as any serious injury to her spine would have been devastating to her outcome.”
Bui is on medication to help keep her brain swelling down and medical staff are keeping her in an induced coma for at least the next week or two, Aitken was told.
She is likely going into surgery either at B.C. Children’s Hospital or VGH to have a halo fitted. The halo will keep her head fixed so her neck can continue to heal, he said.
Following that, medical staff hope her body can regulate itself without the aid of medication, at which point she would slowly be brought out of the coma, he added.
“There is still so much unknown right now and we won’t know much more about her condition for the next two days,” Aitken said. “Doctors are saying that there is a chance that she will not wake up for months.”