Support pours in for BYU freshman injured in bounce house accident

PROVO — What would you do if your hero comes to see you after you lost everything? Your ability to walk, dance, feed yourself and breathe.

"They said, 'This is catastrophic, life-changing. He will never walk again or dance again," said Jen Hinton, Josh Hinton's mother.

Josh was a ballet dancer and the student body president at Stansbury High School in Tooele County. At BYU freshman orientation Aug. 29, he ran through a bounce house obstacle course. He hit his head on an inflatable post and went down.

"It's awful," said Adam Phillips, physician assistant, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. "From the moment of impact, he knew he couldn't move or feel anything."

Josh broke his neck. In the ICU, with his life at stake, his mom was at his side.

"He has Alex Boye on his iPhone and I just put it softly, just barely, barely by his ear and you could see him just calm, and he could get a breath in," Jen said.

Through social media word got back to singing phenom Boye, who came to visit. He sang to him at his bedside.

"That was amazing," Josh said from a stretcher, in a neck brace, with a team of health care professionals surrounding him. "That was one of the best days I've ever had in my life.

"It meant everything," Josh said. "I don't know. It was crazy to have him come and visit."

Josh was on his way to an ambulance outside the hospital, and it took him to an air ambulance that transported him to a state-of-the-art rehab facility that specializes in head and spinal cord injuries.

He takes with him a deep reservoir of faith and strength from his family. His sister Ashlyn snapped a photo as Josh and his mom drove away in the ambulance.

"Love ya," Jen said from the front seat.

"Love you, too. See ya," Ashlyn said.

"They mean everything to me," Josh said. "I wouldn't be able to get through this without them. I haven't been alone the whole entire time I've been here, and that's amazing."

The accident happened at Brigham Square, the lawn north of the main student center by the Wilkinson Center. Josh struggled to breathe as they waited for an ambulance. The students around him dropped to their knees in prayer, and two students administered a blessing to him inside the bounce house while being careful not to touch or move him.

"It has been heartbreaking but also amazing and full of love," Jen said. "It doesn't make sense that you can be so broken-hearted and so full of love and gratefulness."

Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church visited Josh in the hospital about the mission call he'd been waiting for.

Adrian Hinton, Josh's grandfather, recalled the visit with tears in his eyes and said, "(He) looked him right in the eye and said, 'We're holding this mission call for you, and when you're ready, we have another, better one for you."

Adrian and his wife Michelle Hinton, who is also a nurse, took time off from their mission for the church in Palmyra, New York, to assist Josh during this crisis.

The morning of the accident, the immediate Hinton family went to the Draper Temple and snapped a photo they will cherish forever. Three hours later, "Who knew, huh," Jen said.

She believes that temple visit was good preparation for all the hardships and blessings that have followed.

They've received an outpouring of love on Team Hinton on Facebook, and missionaries are praying for him in 50 countries.

"All over the world they put his name in the temple closest to them, and I don't know how we could even add up all the prayers that were said for Joshua," Michelle Hinton said.

Amazingly, Josh can move his wrists. He can stretch out his arms. Jen said he had some feeling on his left heel when a doctor in Denver poked him. "She didn't believe him, so she made him close his eyes and do a test, and it was true," Jen said. "Little steps forward every day."

Doctors don't know if he'll ever walk or dance again, but Josh and his family are staying positive: "I really do feel the love — a lot," Josh said.

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