TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray News) – Friday night was a blur for the Smith family.
The terror started with a phone call.
“The initial phone call was he had been kicked by the bull in his chest and they were going to have him looked at by the EMTs,” Sabrina Smith said.
Sabrina Smith and her husband, Danny Smith, received a phone call saying their 17-year-old son, Walker Smith, was at the rodeo. He was injured.
The teen is a gifted bull rider. He climbed onto his first miniature bull when he was just 12 years old. In 2022, he was named the Junior Bull Riding Champion of the Year.
Walker’s father also ran the rodeo circuit for nearly two decades, so the ranch lifestyle is one the family knows and loves. But by 10 p.m. Friday, it was clear that this rodeo was anything but normal.
“Just a short while later, I received another phone call that he was being life-flighted,” Sabrina Smith said.
Walker was kicked by a bull during a bull-riding event in South Florida, his parents said. He took a major blow to his left chest. The 17-year-old was then flown in a helicopter to Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, where he’s been ever since.
The teen is stable, but his injuries are significant. Lying in his bed in the ICU, Walker has tubes in his chest for his collapsed lungs. He’s on a ventilator. His parents said he can’t move his arms and legs.
The biggest concern is his head.
“He experienced no broken bones, no spinal problems, none of that,“ his parents said. ”It’s all in his brain.”
They explained that their son has been experiencing a series of mini-strokes.
Everything escalated so fast. Walker has been injured and checked out by emergency responders before, Sabrina Smith said, but it’s never been this serious. So, when the couple got the news Friday night that their son was being life-flighted, they dropped everything.
“I lost it,” Sabrina Smith said.
She was in Tallahassee, more than 300 miles away from her son. The distance was palpable. And terrifying. They began to throw their belongings into bags.
“Pretty much started packing clothes, drove as far as we could because it was nighttime,” Danny Smith said. “We got down here and they began working on him.”
During the more than five-hour drive, the couple struggled to process the circumstances they were approaching.
“A lot of mixed emotions,” Sabrina Smith said. “I feel helpless because there’s nothing I can do for him.”
Danny Smith is usually the one that holds everyone else together, but he’s crumbling now, too.
“I’m not handling anything well. I’m not,” Walker’s father said. “Usually, I’m the one that’s telling everybody it’s OK. I’m the one that’s, but I’m not doing well.”
It’s a trial that has shaken the entire family.
Walker is the middle child. He has an older brother who is 26 and a younger sister who is 13. He is close with his siblings and parents. That’s part of what makes this so hard.
“They’re struggling bad,” Sabrina Smith said.
Smith enjoys hunting and fishing with his older brother. After his younger sister was diagnosed with autism, he did a bull ride to honor the neurological disorder.
That’s just who he is.
“Let me tell you this, what kind of kid we got here. He spent most of his riding career focusing on other kids and helping them. We’re talking about a kid who never took a day for granted, always wanted to help the next generation. His only life goal was to help anybody who needed help,” Danny Smith added.
But down at the hospital in south Florida, Danny Smith, Walker and Sabrina Smith are far away from those loved ones.
Walker’s parents are sleeping in their van to stay near their son during his treatment. They can’t work while they’re out of town at the hospital, which means that finances are challenging. It’s an unimaginable hardship.
“You tell everybody, ‘Hey, it’s all going to be alright,’ and then you believe in your heart that it’s going to be alright. Well, when you get alone, you just know when your best friend is… I can’t speak,” Danny Smith said, emotion catching in his throat as he tried to describe the situation.
But despite the distance from home, the Smiths said they are still feeling support. People the parents have never met or even heard of, from places as far as Brazil and Australia, have reached out to share their love, prayers and support.
“People we don’t even know have been reaching out to us. It’s overwhelming,” Danny Smith said. “You know, you try your best to raise your kid right and to have people reach out to you that you don’t even know, you understand that your kid is loved.”
The Smiths said their friends put together a GoFundMe to help them pay for food and try to get a place to stay while they stay near their son during this critical time.
They hope it will soon help them begin the daunting task of paying off Walker’s medical bills, which they expected to be exorbitant.
“I can only imagine what that Life Flight bill is going to be, not to mention that he’s in ICU,“ his mother said. ”We’re probably looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s overwhelming. I’m trying not to even think about it because I’m trying to be focused on him, but it’s just overwhelming because there‘s going to be a large bill out there.“
One thing the family is thinking about is the last time they saw Walker. As his son was heading off to work, Danny told him, “I love you.”
“We hugged like we always do. We never leave each other without saying we love each other,” the father said.
Danny and Sabrina Smith said they are leaning on their faith and love to make it through the uncertainty amid this tragedy.
“All I can do is stand on faith. Walk by faith and not by sight,” Danny Smith said. “That’s the only thing that’s keeping me together.”
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