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DAVIS COUNTY — Two-year-old Zac Horspool has an unusually large family of law enforcement officers for support.
Zac, the son of Davis County deputy Brett Horspool, was diagnosed with GM1 gangliosidosis earlier this year. It is a fatal genetic disorder that only occurs in 1 in 100,000 to 200,000 newborns and progressively destroys nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, according to the National Library of Medicine.
After hearing about Zac’s condition, deputies from the Cache County Sheriff’s Office decided they wanted to help. They raised money by selling beard permits, which allowed deputies to grow facial hair even though it is not within the office’s regular policy.
Between the permits and additional donations, the Cache County Sheriff’s Deputies Association was able to present the Horspool family with $2,100 to help with medical bills Wednesday, according to the Davis County Sheriff’s Office.
“We were excited to be able to do something for a fellow law enforcement,” said Cache County Sgt. Shannon George. “They’re not in our county, but they are still part of an extended law enforcement family.”
Horspool, who has been with the Davis County Sheriff’s Office for eight years in the corrections division, said that during the presentation deputy Phil Johnson talked about how if one law enforcement officer’s child is going through something, it is everyone’s child, so they should step up.
“It’s hard dealing with the fact that you know that you’re going to lose one of your children sooner or later,” Horspool said. “Just to add on top of that the amount of support I’m getting from the sheriff’s office and from other law enforcement agencies around here — there aren’t words to describe the feelings of what I’m experiencing.”
Horspool said he and his wife started to be concerned about their son’s health when he was about 1 year old but wasn’t doing the same things their other children had done at that age. Initially their pediatrician wasn’t concerned that he wasn’t trying to walk, because with two siblings and several teenage foster daughters in the house, there were lots of people holding him and playing with him.
However, as the months progressed and Zac wasn’t improving, his parents took him to another pediatrician and then specialists after he started shaking badly at dinner one night. Eventually he was diagnosed with GM1 gangliosidosis.
At first doctors estimated Zac would die within five years of his diagnosis, but he regressed faster than they expected. He stopped walking and talking after a couple of months, and recently had a feeding tube put in. Horspool said doctors reduced Zac’s life expectancy to three years.
“Right now we’re just living life,” he said. “We’re done with most of the visits until something else comes up. We’re just living day to day and watching him as he kind of regresses and deteriorates.”
Despite the health problems, Zac is still a joy for his family and the young boy has developed an attachment to Mickey Mouse.
“The thing that makes it easier is that he’s an easy-going kid,” Horspool said. “If he’s not in pain, then he’s usually all smiles and laughing.”
