Pahrump family is seeking help through GoFundMe campaign

A Pahrump family is reaching out for assistance in hopes of helping their 1-year-old recover from anoxic brain injury.

“It’s an awful situation,” Kandellyn Cushman told the Pahrump Valley Times.

Cushman’s nephew, 1-year-old Paxton, is in the hospital after a drowning incident that happened on Aug. 31 in Bakersfield, California while her sister, Kassidy Cushman, was staying at their mother’s home in California’s Central Valley.

“I was in the shower, and he was being babysat in the living room,” explained Paxton’s mother Kassidy Cushman. “He ended up crawling through the doggie door to get to the pool. When I got out of the shower, we realized that he was missing. Our younger sister immediately went out to the pool and found him in the pool. And then they did CPR.”

Paxton was then transported to the ER, where medics restarted his heart.

“He had an MRI done and he has brain damage due to the lack of oxygen and blood flow to his brain,” Kassidy Cushman said.

Kandellyn Cushman started a GoFundMe to raise funds for Paxton to receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or HBOT, from Dr. Paul Harch in New Orleans, Louisiana.

“Dr. Paul Harch is a world-renowned HBOT expert, and his treatment program for his patients is unmatched,” states his website, hbot.com. “He has used hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat more than 100 different conditions, including stroke, dementia, autism, and traumatic brain injury. His goal is to help his patients get their lives back using hyperbaric oxygen therapy.”

Kandellyn Cushman said the therapy is not FDA-approved to treat brain injuries, meaning it won’t be covered by insurance, which is why they are asking for help.

“She’s going to have to go out to New Orleans and stay out there while he receives 40 treatments over eight weeks. “I started the GoFundMe in the hopes that we’d try to raise the funds to cover at least half of what everything’s going to cost because we have to pay for everything.”

Paxton is still at a hospital in Fresno, California. The Cushmans added that he has been making little improvements every day, such as now responding to pain and his eyes retracting to light.

To donate visit the Cushmans GoFundMe at gofundme.com/f/support-paxtons-critical-treatment-journey. Updates of Paxton’s journey are also available there.

Contact reporter Elijah Dulay at edulay@pvtimes.com