Henry Cheng is doing far better than anybody thought he\u2019d be doing at this point, his mother Kris Cheng said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver the last couple of weeks, he\u2019s really been blowing minds. He wasn\u2019t expected to regain this level of consciousness \u2014 in some opinions \u2014 ever,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery day, he\u2019s showing us more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just after 1 a.m. on April 2, the 15-year-old Juneau-Douglas High School student was out the road with a friend and accidentally fell between 50 and 80 feet off a cliff.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was dark. He didn\u2019t know that there was a cliff and stepped over a guardrail and over the cliff,\u201d Kris Cheng said. She read the toxicology reports and said no alcohol or drugs were involved.<\/p>\n
The rescue effort took about two and a half hours. Capital City Fire\/Rescue\u2019s rope rescue team rappelled down the cliff and used a boat to help extract him. Juneau Police Department was also involved in the rescue, said spokesperson Erann Kalwara. Neither departments put out a press release about the accident or rescue.<\/p>\n
Henry was transported to Bartlett Regional Hospital and was medevaced to Seattle\u2019s Harborview Medical Center later that morning.<\/p>\n
Henry suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, his mom said, and was unconscious in the intensive care unit for 16 days before being transferred to Seattle Children\u2019s Hospital. Miraculously, he didn\u2019t have any broken bones.<\/p>\n
Kris Cheng hasn\u2019t left Henry\u2019s side since the accident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually have a bed in his room right by him. In ICU at Harborview, we just got a chair and we would trade out and take a couple hour naps here and there,\u201d she said. \u201cNow I\u2019m just by his side helping him with his therapy, his daily care and encouraging him, whether he likes to hear my voice or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Henry hasn\u2019t been able to consistently communicate. He\u2019s been relearning and will continue to relearn how to do everything, Kris Cheng said. On Wednesday, he was transferred from the medical unit to the rehabilitation unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s sitting up on his own in a wheelchair. His strength is for sure growing every day. His ability to sit up for longer periods is improving, and he\u2019s working on turning over,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Kris Cheng said Henry could be at Children\u2019s Hospital for another four to six weeks. From there she hopes he\u2019ll be able to go home, but things are still uncertain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say. I don\u2019t think this is something you ever fully recover from, to get back to where he was. No one can know,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A violin player since about age 7, Henry is well known in Juneau\u2019s music community. He\u2019s a member of Juneau Strings Ensembles, including Aurora Strings and Crimson Quartet, and the Juneau Symphony.<\/p>\n
Board president of the Juneau Strings Ensembles Sarah Olsen said Henry is highly skilled, very advanced and just an all-around good kid.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s super friendly and gets along with everyone,\u201d Olsen said. \u201cI just see him as really consistent and one of the kids that other kids in (Aurora Strings) look up to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several instrument groups, including the Juneau Strings Ensembles, Juneau Symphony, JAMM and Mendenhall Quartet, are performing in a fundraising concert for Henry on Sunday, 2-4 p.m., at the Juneau Arts & Culture Center. The show is called \u201cMaking Music for Henry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a way for us to get together and play music and celebrate Henry,\u201d Olsen said.<\/p>\n
Henry\u2019s father Vince Cheng said Henry has tutored other students in violin and has played on tourist boats in the summer. He excels at school and loves welding class. He\u2019s also a talented athlete. As a sophomore this year, Henry made the varsity soccer team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really think the reason why is because he worked out so hard six months before that, lifting weights, running. He\u2019s a determined kind of guy. Once he sets his mind to something, he works really hard,\u201d said Vincent Cheng.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the same determination, he said, that\u2019s allowing his son to fight for his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t expect to find him alive, and they didn\u2019t expect him to live the first couple of days. He\u2019s made it through and is surprising everyone every day. He\u2019s definitely a hard worker. You can tell when he\u2019s in rehab, he\u2019s working hard. You can physically see it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Henry\u2019s team members on the JDHS soccer team want Henry and his family to know that they\u2019re fighting along with him.<\/p>\n
When Anchorage\u2019s Service High came to Juneau at the end of April, the soccer team held a fundraiser for Henry and collected more than $5,000 in one weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just trying to find a way to support the family,\u201d JDHS varsity soccer coach Gary Lehnhart said. \u201cI can only imagine and I heard a bunch of parents who said, \u2018You know, what if this was my family, it would be so hard to do,\u2019 so many of the soccer families were willing to help knowing that it was just a little something we could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lehnhart and the team have also been wearing red bracelets to match one that Henry was given a year ago and is still wearing as he recovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bracelets were our way of just trying to take a piece of Henry with us not just in the games but all through the day knowing that he has a battle to fight, and we wanted to be there to fight it with him in any way we could even if it was just in terms of thinking about him and supporting him in that way,\u201d Lehnhart said.<\/p>\n
The team had to receive a waiver from the Alaska School Activities Association to wear them during games as that\u2019s not normally allowed of athletes.<\/p>\n
Lehnhart said he thinks about Henry and his recovery every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s constantly in my mind,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s the kind of kid that makes coaching rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n
The red bracelet says, \u201cLive your dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s Henry,\u201d Vince Cheng said. \u201cHe just loves life and has fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kris Cheng and Vince Cheng have three other sons: James, 18, Gabe, 11, and Sam, 10. Kris Cheng said she and her family are doing as well as they are due to the support they\u2019ve received from family, friends, coworkers and the Juneau community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that my family and friends in the entire town have come out to rally behind him is a huge, almost overwhelming, boost of support,\u201d Kris Cheng said. \u201cIt really is mind-blowing how much love our community has, and how it just comes flooding out when something like this happens.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneau.empire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Henry Cheng is doing far better than anybody thought he\u2019d be doing at this point, his mother Kris Cheng said. \u201cOver the last couple of weeks, he\u2019s really been blowing minds. He wasn\u2019t expected to regain this level of consciousness \u2014 in some opinions \u2014 ever,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery day, he\u2019s showing us more and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":28082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-28081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28081"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=28081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}