Swanson’s ‘very courageous boy’ going home soon
Four-year-old son of Jays reliever was airlifted to hospital after being hit by SUV on Feb. 25
A ball team is rather like a small village. Just as they say that it takes a village to raise a child, it sometimes takes a village to rally around and console the traumatized parents of a child who has been hurt.
Toby Swanson, the four-year-old son of Blue Jays reliever Erik Swanson, was hurt bad.
A little boy. An SUV. Sudden impact. Three thousand tons of steel and fibreglass colliding with vulnerable flesh and bones.
Toby’s mother, Madison, was there, on just another lazy Sunday of Florida sunshine, almost a fortnight ago, on Clearwater Beach. Erik was some seven miles away at the Jays’ player development complex, in the early days of spring training and in the company of his teammates.
When the shattering news was received, Swanson raced to be with his family, while his seriously injured youngster was attended to on the scene by paramedics, police and fire and ambulance arriving all at once, passing strangers doing what they could to help mother and child.
Toby was reported initially to have suffered “potentially life-threatening injuries.” The child was airlifted to Johns Hopkins All Children Hospital in St. Petersburg and his condition upon arrival was described as “critical,” according to a police press release.
Baseball, a game grown-up athletes play, is often described as life and death; the games sometimes feel that way. But they’re always a far cry from real life and real death, from the real world at accident scenes and inside emergency departments and intensive care units, where the heroes are not sluggers and pitching aces but doctors and nurses and technicians.
Toby is going to be OK.
For the first time since that awful day, Erik Swanson met with reporters in Dunedin, clearly consumed with relief for his boy and gratitude to everyone who played a role in bringing his child through the crisis.
“I probably wouldn’t be standing here giving you this update if it wasn’t for the first responders in Clearwater that day. All the staff at Johns Hopkins and how amazing
that they’ve been, all my family here, Toronto, front office, so many people that I can name, teammates, wives, everybody has been amazing.”
Swanson naturally left camp and stayed away during the first week of Toby’s hospitalization. Upon his return over the weekend, he asked the media to leave him be for a while and respect his privacy. He decided Thursday the time had come to speak publicly in a scrum outside the clubhouse.
“Last Sunday, on the 25th, Toby was involved in a pretty horrific accident. He was life-flighted to Johns Hopkins in St. Pete’s … and he was stable when I got there. Checked a few things off the really important list the next few days.
“I stand here very happily telling you that, in the next day or two, he should probably be going home.”
No details were offered, or sought, about the nature and extent of Toby’s injuries. Nor would Swanson address the specifics of the accident, which remains under investigation.
What’s known, what the police have made public, is that Toby was struck by a 2024 Ford Explorer that was being driven by a valet near the Opal Sand Resort in Clearwater Beach.
There is a lot of chaotic traffic on that road, particularly during spring break, and the celebrants began descending a couple of weeks ago. Police made clear that the driver had remained on the scene and was co-operating with investigators.
The agony for the Swanson family can be well imagined and the accident had cast a pall over the Jays camp. So many players have young children, just like Toby. It’s the greatest dread of any parent, when a child comes to grief and there’s nothing you can do except put your faith in the healers, the marvels of modern medicine.
But the Swansons have been flooded with kind messages from thousands of well-wishers, from players on other teams, and have deeply appreciated the thoughts and prayers. “We feel it all and it has made this process a little bit easier, with as difficult a situation as it has been,” said Erik.
It was Madison who provided occasional updates on social media and you could sense the tide of a mother’s keen distress gently ebbing as her child’s condition improved. “The most important update is that Toby is out of the PICU” — pediatric intensive care unit — “and we are continuing to take it day by day,” she posted to Instagram last Wednesday. “God is so good, and we are so blessed … Someone has truly been watching over my little man.”
This could have been so much worse with just a slight shift of fate, of inches.
“Just based off the situation, we’re very, very lucky with everything that happened and the outcome of where we’re at now,” said dad Swanson. “My wife has been absolutely amazing throughout this entire process, very strong, just what a strong, courageous mother should be.”
A strong, courageous father, too. While both parents have had their blood family to lean on through these anxious days, Erik Swanson acknowledged, after the first responders and the doctors, the support he has received from teammates, from their significant others.
“On behalf of my wife and myself, I don’t think we can really put into words how grateful we are for not only the guys in that clubhouse but their wives as well, how amazing each and every one has been for us the last 10 days, whether it’s people bringing us meals at night or calling us or sending us texts, checking on Toby.’
Some even put together a video of other players’ kids, for Toby to watch.
Erik’s eyes lit up when he was asked to describe his little boy, last seen by many of us when he threw out an opening pitch last season alongside Tim Mayza’s young son at Rogers Centre. The apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.
“He’s a very charismatic boy, a very courageous boy, strong, tough. Very outgoing. And I think his personality allowed him to push through a lot of the struggles that he’s had to go through the last 10 days or so and get him through some of those longer days at the hospital.
“He’s been extremely tough and courageous throughout this entire event.”
Toby is going to be fine. His parents may need longer to recover.