May 27, 1999

Two years ago, a young Holladay boy nearly drowned in Mill Creek.

Now, his parents are going to extraordinary lengths to retrain their injured son to move, eat and even laugh.

News Specialist Stacey Butler has their story.

Two-year-old Hagan Johnson suffered serious brain injuries when he was swept down a raging Mill Creek in his grandparents' Holladay neighborhood.

Doctors said Hagan would never move, never eat by mouth, never smile.

Hagan's mother, Kristen Johnson, says, "You couldn't even move him. You couldn't stretch out his hands. He would tone and posture. He would cry all the time."

But his parents, Kristen and Eric Johnson, were determined to provide a different life for their son.

They decided to try a somewhat unorthodox, and unproven, therapy.

Patterning is a technique that stimulates the brain from every possible sense - and continues to stimulate until the brain reawakens.

Every day, family and friends volunteer to work with Hagan.

Kristen says, "Brain injured kids have what's called cortical blindness, so they can see, but the brain and the eyes don't really connect very well, so it's off and on. So this helps him so he can work his eyes."

Kristen says even though the traditional medical community downplays the effectiveness of patterning, she was willing to try anything.

"They said I was in total denial with Hagan. They said that he was neurologically devastated. But I just felt like he's in there and he's just hitting a brick wall, and, you know, we have to get him out of there."

The Johnsons learned the patterning technique from The National Academy for Child Development in Ogden, one of only two organizations in the country to teach it.