Keona was 9 weeks old when she arrived at Children’s Hospital New Orleans with broken legs and ribs.
Doctors diagnosed shaken baby syndrome: bleeding on both sides of her brain and a whole month connected to a ventilator. A social worker called it the most severe case of abuse she had ever seen. One in four shaken babies dies, and many who survive are left with permanent brain damage. Keona suffered neither.
But the tube that kept her alive left scars that closed off her windpipe. She had to breathe through a tracheostomy and couldn’t make a sound—not even cry. Tammy and Kevin Mock, who adopted her in August 2017, learned how to care for her during two weeks of training at the hospital.
At 18 months, surgeon Sohit Kanotra removed pieces of cartilage from her ribs and used them to widen her airway. Ten days after the operation, she whispered her first word: “Hello”. Today, she is 8 years old, dreams of becoming an otolaryngologist, and never stops talking.
