Celebrating one year of skull fracture surgery success

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) - Aug. 25, 2022, four-year-old Livia Mayberry suffered a skull fracture after falling and hitting her head on pavement while playing basketball with her dad. Today marks one year since she underwent surgery.

“She’s a great kid, so it was it was pretty. Easy. She’s smart. It was a lot easier than I thought. It was going to be. With everything from starting to ride a bike now. With school and everything was. It went a lot better than initially thought it was going to be, was pretty stressful at first, and it got better really quick,” said John Mayberry.

The fall led to Livia having to get an emergent life saving craniotomy by Dr. Manish Sharma at Mayo Clinic Health System, Mankato.

But the hospital does not perform pediatric neurosurgery.

So medical staff went to extraordinary lengths to save her life.

“You know at this point though, you get. Tunnel vision, you know. What with four year old, it’s like. There could be another 70 or 80 years of life at stake here. So it’s it’s very important, that’s all you focus on,” said Anesthesiologist David Stinson.

Livia was rushed to the operating room, where the surgeon operated immediately, instead of waiting to go to Rochester by ambulance.

The surgery took two hours and she was transferred on a ventilator to their CT scanner.

“Feel great? They did a great job. The doctors were great, the nurses were great,” said Mayberry. Did they do a good Job pumpkin?”

“Yeah.”

After Livia’s surgery, she was discharged to go home the next day.

She has now finished preschool and is as normal as can be.

Click here to download the KEYC News Now app or our KEYC First Alert weather app.

Copyright 2023 KEYC. All rights reserved.