‘Miracle’ recovery for Adelaide student critically injured in hammer throw accident

The family of an Adelaide year seven student say their son is on the way to a “miracle” recovery from a serious hammer throw accident at school.

Javale Morato,13, was struck during a school training session at St Albans Reserve in Clearview in September.

He was rushed to hospital with a severe traumatic brain injury that required a high-risk operation on his brain.

But he is now showing positive signs of making a recovery, despite his family initially being told to “expect the worst”.

The day of Javale’s accident, his mother Teresa had just arrived to pick him up and saw her son throw a javelin just before she turned around to unbuckle her daughter’s seatbelt.

Emergency services reported at the time the teenager had been struck at hammer throw training.

Hammer throw involves swinging and launching a tethered metal ball as far as possible.

When Teresa looked out to the field again, a group of students had surrounded someone on the ground, but she could not see Javale in the crowd.

“I couldn’t find him anywhere, so my heart begins to race,” she told The Southern Cross Catholic publication.

“That’s when I received a call on my phone and it was from the school, so I knew.”

Emergency services put a tarpaulin around Javale and Teresa’s heart sank as she began to fear her son might not make it.

She was told he was struck by a ball.

“I kept telling them to move away from my son,” she said.

She described Javale’s face as “all black” from a lack of oxygen when his body was turned over and paramedics began CPR.

She shouted to Javale, “don’t go, you come back, you come back”.

A doctor managed to intubate Javale, giving Teresa a glimmer of hope he would recover.

Meanwhile, Javale’s father, Jason, was working in a remote community as a FIFO worker when he got an unexpected call from a friend telling him about the accident.

“I started to panic, from then on I was trying to fly back but because I was in a remote area I couldn’t fly,” Jason told Southern Cross.

He arrived in Adelaide the following day and was overcome with grief, seeing Javale’s condition in hospital.

“When I saw my son I couldn’t believe what had happened to him,” Jason said.

“Every morning we would exchange messages, I’d tell him to take care, be safe, especially because he’s taking the bus to school now … and he’d say ‘OK, OK, I love you’.

“It’s really unexplainable, what it was like to see him. I thought this couldn’t happen to my son because he is really active; this kind of freak accident, you never dream of this happening to your son.”

Teresa said being asked to sign a waiver for Javale’s surgery was incredibly difficult

“A lot of questions were running through my mind but hearing the words that he might not make it … I said ‘please save my baby’.

“After the neurosurgeon left the room my friend and I started praying the Rosary.

“We called our friends, they also started praying together. I called all the people — our priest, friends, family, everyone who could help us in that time.”

Javale was put into an induced coma after the surgery to help his recovery, and after 72 hours the medication was decreased so he could wake up.

The family said during the first two weeks Javale mostly slept before later showing some signs of progress.

He was able to speak when a small trachea with a speaker valve was inserted four weeks after the accident.

He began recognising visitors and regaining some movements on his ride side most impacted by the injury.

Javale’s parents, who are devout Catholics, said they had to put their faith in the medical team because there was nothing they could do themselves.

They said they asked everyone in the social circle to keep the family in their prayers.

“Since day one it’s already a miracle, like escaping this kind of injury, like from the surgery to the present,” Jason said about his son.

Javale’s family organised him a 13th birthday on October 12 while he was in hospital.

Teresa said the hospital staff, school and many friends and family had shown the family unwavering support.

Part of that was because Javale has such a “kind heart”, she said.

“He’s a very active boy, very competitive, a very good son and friend, so friendly, intelligent, smart…even his old teachers love him and have come to visit,” Teresa said.

“I am very proud of my boy and really praying hard that he will get through this pointof his life.”