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A six-year-old boy is in critical but stable condition after he was struck in the head by a projectile launched from underneath a lawnmower. Alex Hook was outside playing during recess at Riverview Elementary School in Silver Lake, Wisconsin, while a landscaper was mowing the grassy median in the middle of the street.
Officials said the landscaper mowed over a piece of rebar, which was then flung across the road and struck Hook in the head. He was airlifted to the hospital and underwent emergency brain surgery, where surgeons removed a piece of bone from his brain.
The young boy is in a medically induced coma, and doctors won't know the extent of the brain damage until he is awake.
"He's still in critical but stable condition. He had additional swelling at the left side of his face today," Hook's aunt, Michelle Koertgen, told the Kenosha News.
She explained that doctors want to do a few more tests before they decide whether to wake Hook from the coma.
"And, at that time, they'll make a determination if they're going to do something from a medicine perspective or something more aggressive," she said. "If (doctors) are comfortable with the level he's at, they're going to, after the 72-hour mark, then contemplate taking him out of the medically-induced state that he's in."
Koertgen created a GoFundMe page to help Hook's parents cover the medical expenses.
"We continue to pray for a speedy and complete recovery, however, it's very likely Alex will need extensive rehabilitation in the weeks, months and possibly years to come," Koertgen wrote.