Ghost Ship survivor out of coma.
Sam Maxwell, 32, has fought burns, pneumonia, infection, his parents say
SAN FRANCISCO — For the past six weeks, Stockton residents Wendi and Bill Maxwell have spent the bulk of their days within the confines of the pale blue walls that make up Saint Francis Hospital’s burn unit, watching their son, Sam, fight for his life.
Sam Maxwell, 32, was the last person to leave the Ghost Ship warehouse Dec. 2 in Oakland’s Fruitvale District as flames ravaged the building, killing 36 people, they said. He made it to the curb, but not before inhaling plumes of smokes that seared the inside of his lungs and burned his face, ears and hands.
What was supposed to be a routine, three-day stay at the hospital has turned into an agonizing six weeks as Sam has struggled through complication after complication, they said. He has fought off two bouts of pneumonia, a bacterial infection, dangerously low blood pressure levels, a cardiac episode, fevers, and a swollen liver and spleen. Now, however, Sam has turned a corner, though full recovery is still a long way off.
“He’s taken about the longest route,” Wendi said of his recovery as Bill chimed in. “But he’s always been adventurous.”
It wasn’t unusual that Sam, whose friends and family call him “Peaches,” was attending a dance party at an art collective’s underground warehouse in Oakland. A rare book curator for Walden Pond Bookstore in the city’s Grand Lake neighborhood, Sam has always gravitated toward fringe political movements, art and music events, his parents said.
And, as a frequent participant in demonstrations in Oakland, Sam has made it a habit to let his parents know that he had made it through the protests in one piece.
So, on the night of Dec. 2, when Wendi received a cryptic text message from her only child saying, “I’m alive. I’m out,” she didn’t think too much of it. She responded, joking about whether he was referring to a recent cold.
It wasn’t until the morning that she realized how close she came to losing him. By that point, Sam had already asked his friends to take him to Oakland’s Highland Hospital.
Wendi said she spoke briefly with him on the phone in the morning before the doctors told her his throat was beginning to swell shut and they needed to induce a coma so he could heal. That was supposed to last three days.
They transferred him to Saint Francis Hospital in San Francisco and three days turned to six, which turned into three more days, then six more and so on until eventually, his doctor stopped making predictions.
Nearly every day, his parents looked at their son’s unchanging face, his open eyes with no person staring back at them. They became accustomed to the constant hum of the hospital machinery, the regular beeps and chimes to alert the doctors of changing conditions. They got to know the other families in the burn unit, and they received a steady stream of Sam’s friends who brought food, stories of his escapades in Oakland and, more importantly, support.
“His friends have been really great,” Bill said.
During the day, the nagging worries are easier to tame, Wendi said. But when the distraction of the day’s activities fade and night leaves nothing but stillness, it’s then that thoughts of “what if” keep Wendi and Bill awake, wracked with fear.
They’ve been buoyed, they said, by the doctors and nurses who have cared for their son, including one nurse who Wendi watched gently stroke Sam’s forehead, or the night nurse who lent his shoulder for her to cry on during a particularly difficult night.
And as of last week, Bill said the doctors took Sam off the heavy sedatives that have kept him unconscious, though they take some time to wear off. He’s able to move his feet and sit up, though he still can’t talk or use much of his muscles, which have atrophied in his weeks of bedrest. But, perhaps most significantly for his parents, now when they look at him, they see someone staring back.
“He’s a fighter,” Wendi said. “He’s going to make it.”