Brain damage … Peyton McCaughley, 10, became ill after his family home was fumigated. Picture: Facebook Source: Supplied
PEYTON McCaughey, 10, has been left unable to feed himself and with “uncontrollable twitching and flopping’ after a botched home fumigation.
Peyton, his mum Lori, dad, Carl, and little sister, returned to their Palm City, Florida home two days after it had been treated for termites.
They had been told by the fumigation company that the house was safe to return to but that night all of them started vomiting.
WPBF reports that while the others started getting better, Peyton’s condition got worse and he started having muscle spasms and impaired speech and movement.
He was taken to hospital and remains in a facility barely able to talk.
Doctors say he has potentially lifelong brain damage.
“He has traumatic brain injury and loss of motor skills,” the McCaugheys’ lawyer, Bill Williams, told CNN. “The rest of the family is fine, thank God. The little boy is not fine.”
Overwhelmed … Peyton’s family, including mother Lori and father Carl, say they can’t believe the level of support they have received after Peyton was hospitalised. Picture: Facebook. Source: Supplied
The McCaughleys have set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for all of Peyton’s medical bills.
They said they have been overwhelmed by the support with people donating more than $40,000 of the $100,000 target in just three days.
“(Peyton) seems to have retained his personality and cognitive skills. Being young, he may be able to reroute the messages through other parts of his brain to regain some of his motor skills. But, he has to relearn them through a lengthy process consisting of daily physical and occupational therapy,” the family said. “We don’t know if recovery means 10 per cent better, 90 per cent better, or somewhere in between. It is unknown how long he will be in therapy. What we do know is that he is unlikely to return home for a long time.”
The McCaughleys say that the company responsible, Terminix, has not responded to their questions and concerns about the fumigation, which happened two weeks ago.
A Terminix spokesman said: “We are saddened to learn of this and our hearts are with the family. We are carefully reviewing the matter.”