McHenry boy hit by car on his dirt bike, causing brain injury, now recovering at home

It took Aleksandra and Brad Moscrip three hours to drive to Maywood that day, and in all that time, they never said a word to each other.

The couple spent hours stuck in traffic July 31, driving to the Loyola University Medical Center, where their 7-year-old son, Alex, had been flown in critical condition after he was struck by an SUV while riding his dirt bike in their quiet rural McHenry neighborhood.

“We drove in silence,” not knowing what condition Alex was in, Brad Moscrip said.

What came in the days and weeks after is nothing short of miraculous. In the early days after the crash, the Moscrips were told that Alex would be hospitalized for at least three months. But after five weeks at Loyola and then rehab at Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital in Wheaton, Alex was able to go home.

Now, four months after the crash that has changed Alex’s life and their family, the Moscrips are figuring out what is next.

“We are creating the new normal, but like [from] scratch, from the beginning. That is the hardest part,” said Alex’s mother, Aleksandra Moscrip.

There are things they are grateful for, Brad Moscrip said. Although he did not know the family, Johnsburg resident JD Sylvanus started a GoFundMe for Alex and his family. The Ronald McDonald House gave them a place to stay close to Alex throughout his treatment.

But in the hours after the surgery, a portion of Alex’s skull was removed to relieve the pressure on his brain. Although he woke up and was walking sooner than anyone thought he would, Alex will always be left with a traumatic brain injury, his mother said.

Even with the brain injury, Alex remembers most of the day.

“He remembers everything,” Aleksandra Moscrip said. “The brain trauma might end up being memory problems ... but he remembers everything. He started putting it together – that he was on the bike, the color of the car. What exactly happened, we won’t get it from him. But he has the main points of it.”

The crash came three weeks after his early July birthday. Alex was riding his child-sized motorized dirt bike near Lake Pistakee in the unincorporated Pistakee Highlands area.

“It is what all of the kids do all of the time,” his father said. “That is the neighborhood. It is boats and quads, ATVs and dirt bikes. That is what this neighborhood is.”

Alex remembers that his “dad got me a doughnut first,” and then he went out to ride his dirt bike, he said. He told his dad he would be going out for a quick ride, just like he’d done all summer.

“It was too fast and too slow” all at the same time, and his head hit a truck, Alex recalled.

The driver of a Toyota Highlander was issued a citation for not driving on the right side of a two-lane road, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. Officials did not name the driver.

What Alex’s parents remember is a neighbor coming to the house, telling them to call 911 and let dispatch know they were at home and had been told Alex was hurt, and to give dispatchers the information needed. Two sheriff patrol cars then arrived, telling them Alex was about to be flown to a hospital.

“Then, they got me to the hospital, and I didn’t wake up for a long time,” Alex said. He was in an induced coma for a week.

Just over two weeks after the crash, the hospital was ready to send Alex to rehab at Marianjoy.

“He healed, physically, really fast,” Brad Moscrip said. They were home Sept. 6, and a month later, on Oct. 6, they were back at Loyola for the surgery that replaced the removed portion of Alex’s skull.

At home, Alex is getting physical, occupational and speech therapy. He is seeing a psychologist – that will be a long-term thing, his mom said – and is getting tutoring for an hour a day two days a week instead of attending school.

“The goal is five hours a week, but his endurance and stamina, his attention span is not there yet,” Aleksandra Moscrip said.

That is where they have seen the biggest changes, Brad Moscrip said. Their smart, outgoing, robust 7-year-old has, in ways, reverted to being a toddler in his reactions.

“There are outbursts. He is easily frustrated and wants instant gratification. Physiologically, he is a 3-year-old, but super smart and bigger,” he said. “He had a giant growth spurt through all of this, too.”

Brad Moscrip can relate to what his son is going through, having suffered his own brain injury last year after tripping off the back of the deck.

He shook it off until two days later, when he had a seizure in the kitchen, again hitting his head. He was in the hospital for two weeks.

Neither of Alex’s parents have worked since the crash. Aleksandra, a cosmetic tattooist, has not been able to work, as caring for Alex at home – both mentally and physically – is a two-person job.

They’ve been living off the GoFundMe donations and are loathe to ask for more.

“We are so thankful to everyone who donated and who helped” with donations and bringing food to the house so their older son, Matt, would have meals while they were at the hospital, Brad Moscrip said.

But now, they have to figure out what comes next.

“Feeling-wise, mental wise, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But it is a long road,” Aleksandra Moscrip said.

“Now we have to figure out how to keep on going,” Brad Moscrip said. “We are at a mental breaking point.”