Help Fund Severely Challenged Jonathan Carrington’s Wheelchair Lift Van
I am Tammy Carrington, until recently, a single mother, and for the last 26 years, I’ve been struggling to keep my severely disabled son, Jonathan Carrington, alive. Right now, he needs a wheelchair lift van. It sounds like an easy problem to solve, but I can’t afford even an older used van.
Jonathan is my only child. He was born a perfect, healthy baby boy, but before I took him home from the hospital, Jonathan was given a Hepatitis B vaccine without my knowledge or consent. Within four hours of getting the shot, Jonathan began screaming at the top of his lungs. Blood-curdling screams, 18 to 20 hours a day. He was inconsolable, and I felt so inadequate. Like the worst mom ever.
Then Jonathan’s hair started falling out, and his bowels shut down. His pediatrician said it was colic, and he’d outgrow it. In the meantime, I’d need to bring him in three times a week so we could stretch his little sphincter so he could poop. In other words, they had to dig the feces out of his tiny body.
Two months later, he was given a second Hepatitis B along with a Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis vaccine which caused an aneurysm that ruptured in his brain and left him severely challenged. Later I discovered these vaccines were part of a “hot lot” (this batch causeddevastating side effects) that had killed and injured lots of children. According to VAERS, a government database, Jonathan received one of the top 10 “hottest lots” in U.S. history.
As a result, Jonathan lost the ability to walk, talk, eat, go to the bathroom, and now, breathe on his own. He is a special needs child who is considered medically fragile. When he was little, the local newspaper and TV station, KTRE, followed Jonathan’s story and updated the community. They named him “The Miracle Boy,” and he is.
Since then, he’s been in and out of hospitals more times than I can count, and it’s been a constant battle to keep him alive.
A year ago, Jonathan was hospitalized on a ventilator with Flu A, Strep, and aspirational pneumonia. He was in kidney, heart, and respiratory failure, and he had no pulse.
You can’t imagine what it’s like to stand, helplessly, against the wall in your child’s ICU room and watch him almost die, repeatedly.
That night I saw Santa Claus in the hospital and asked if he would pay a visit to my son in intensive care. Santa asked if he could pray for Jonathan. “I’m not just Santa Claus,” he told me. “I’m a preacher, too.”
Santa prayed, and the nurses came and prayed with us, and the next day everything started to turn around. The hospital chaplain told me that one of Jonathan’s doctors was agnostic, but “now he’s been asking questions about God.” To be in almost total organ failure and have everything normalize… He couldn’t explain it.
It wasn’t long before the same doctor came to me and said, “I now believe there’s something greater than us, and last night I prayed for Jonathan. I asked if there was anything else I could do for him.” The doctor and I stood in the hall and hugged and cried.
While I have some trusted home healthcare nurses to help me care for Jonathan, most of his care falls to me, and I do it gratefully and gladly. Please know I’m not complaining because I am a mother who will do anything for my child to keep him alive.
Over the years, there have been many emergencies and times when the ambulances didn’t show up or the insurance wouldn’t cover them to take him to a hospital that could help him. This past October 2023, Jonathan had a fever. His oxygen saturation levels were off, and I knew he needed to go to the hospital. I was alone with him, but because I’m a two-time cancer survivor (breast and gynecological) who’s had seven surgeries, and Jonathan has a tracheostomy and is on a ventilator, I couldn’t lift him by myself into our old, 2004 van that does not have a wheelchair lift.
Someone finally came to help me—or he would have died. He was sicker than I could have imagined because once in the hospital, he began spewing blood from his throat like an open fire hydrant. After a month in ICU, 20units of blood, and four emergency scopes to find where he was bleeding out, I took my son home. I vowed to raise the money to buy a van with a lift, but I need your help.
A used 2015 wheelchair lift van costs about $35,000. There’s no way I can afford this, much less the new vans that can cost as much as $80,000 to $100,000.
Twenty-six years ago, when my perfect, four-month-old baby boy suffered that aneurysm, I promised God if He would save my son, I would tell his story to everyone who would listen. Everything about this boy who can’t walk or talk steals the hearts of those who meet him. Jonathan inspires them. He’s still here for a reason, and I know God is not done with Jonathan.
It’s not easy for me to ask for your help, but I hope you can find it in your heart to contribute whatever you can. I would be most grateful. If Jonathan had died that day because I couldn’t lift him into our old van, I’m not sure I could live with myself. I need to know I have done everything I can to help my son.
All the money raised will be used to pay for a wheelchair lift van for Jonathan and the required vehicle insurance.
I send my blessings to all of you who read this and consider donating to help Jonathan.
Thank you,
Tammy Carrington
Jonathan’s mother