Calgary parents Leah and Adam Jones are receiving an outpouring of support after sharing details of an accident involving their youngest child, baby Rowan, while in Mexico for a family vacation.
Leah said on the last day abroad, Adam fell while holding three-month-old Rowan. The baby hit her head and her skull was fractured.
Medevacked to a Florida hospital, friends say the Jones’ have been overseeing their child’s recovery from there until it’s safe for Rowan to travel back home to Calgary.
Concerned friend and parent Traci Costa started a GoFundMe page in hopes of sending love and support to the Jones family.
Costa, who is the founder and CEO of Peekaboo Beans in Vancouver, said Leah Jones is one of her play stylists, an independent sales representative, based out of Calgary.
“I learned about baby Rowan’s accident and, as a mother, I felt extremely distraught for the family. I knew that the Peekaboo Beans community of stylists would want to reach out and support her,” Costa said. “I thought it would be an extremely difficult time and even just facing financial burdens that may arise from this…
“I wanted to be able to be productive and provide an opportunity for the community to be able to show their love and support for Leah and Adam.”
Costa said family told her Rowan is “doing much better” and was discharged from the hospital in Florida.
Costa said she is able to move her right side and track things with her eyes. In addition, the swelling and bleeding in her brain is subsiding. The family is now waiting to see if they will be able to travel home Saturday, March 31, following Rowan’s last scheduled brain scan at the Broward hospital in Florida.
“No family should be going through what they have been experiencing. I can only imagine what it’s like being in another country and worrying about the medical bills.”
Costa said the Jones’ told her they’re very surprised and appreciative of the $3,218 Costa had been able to raise as of Tuesday night.
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“The outreach of unsolicited kindness from people that may not even know them is just so generous. I think that in this day and age, with the world sometimes seeming like a dark place, something like this is such a difficult and challenging situation, but you really see the community rise to give back.”
Leah Jones provided a statement from Florida, thanking Costa and others for their support.
“Our family is truly speechless with the amount of support we have received and continue to receive during this difficult time,” Jones wrote. “We wanted to share our story, even though it has been extremely difficult to relive those dark hours, because we want other other parents to know that accidents happen.
“We hope by sharing our experience, it will help more parents to be present in each moment, even in the chaos of families with young children. We appreciate every prayer, every person who has taken the time to write us a message or share our post and GoFundMe link. We will be forever grateful for your hearts.
“We are so grateful that she’s alive and improving and we are happy to be coming home, where she will continue to be cared for by specialists in Canada.”
“Leah is just such an inspiration,” Costa said. “She always remains strong and I’m just inspired by her as a person, and as a mother, of how she handles the challenges in her life. It’s not anything that anyone should go through.
“Life is precious and it can change in a heartbeat and this is a moment where–when these types of difficulties and challenges happen–we can come together as a community and show support. Hopefully this is just a blip in baby Rowan’s life.”
Costa said that the family intends to donate any leftover money from paying their medical bills to the Max Robinson Children’s Foundation.
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