Nearly three months after their son was left critically injured during a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Wisconsin, Christina and Brett Clardy say their son, River, is alive today thanks to hardworking doctors and their faith in God.
“River is a kid who is a perseverer. He’s a hard worker,” Christina Clardy said in a recent interview with WMTV about her 14-year-old son.
“We believe that God is a huge part of his healing through natural means like through the body healing itself and through some things that you know aren’t explainable to us. But he is, he’s done better than he should have,” she said of her River’s recovery following the shooting that left three people dead and five others injured.
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On Dec. 16, 2024, officers with the Madison Police Department said they were called to Abundant Life Christian School at 10:57 a.m. Central time about a shooting where they discovered that 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow murdered a teacher, a student and injured several others, including River, before taking her own life.
Christina Clardy, who is a first year teacher at the school, said her first instinct when the shooting began was to protect the children in her class. Once she had things under control, she turned her attention to her own three children who are also students at the school.
“I pretty quickly saw my two daughters and they were questioning me about where their brother was. I had not seen him, but I knew they were also still clearing out the school,” she told WMTV. “It became pretty clear that some people were still missing … and one of my teaching team informed the police that my son was one of those people.”
When it was discovered that River had been injured, he was transported to American Family Children’s Hospital. Upon hearing the news that his son had been wounded, Brett Clardy rushed back from Chicago while his wife and daughters quicky drove to the hospital.
“I didn’t know anything other than he was at the hospital, that’s all I knew,” Brett Clardy recalled. “I wasn’t sure of his condition, his state, his level of injuries. I was just driving.”
Dr. Adam Brinkman, medical director of pediatric trauma care at UW Health’s American Family Children’s Hospital, told the local news station that River’s condition was dire.
“He had a breathing tube in. The paramedics and EMTs were breathing for him. He had no shirt on and across his chest in black magic marker was his first name,” he noted.
“River was losing a lot of blood from injuries to his neck, to his throat, to his hip, to his hand. His skin color was very pale. His heart rate was very high. Blood pressure was very low. All the clinical signs that he was very close to dying,” Brinkman noted.
With three injuries to his neck, including a bullet that went through his carotid artery and one that went through the back of his throat, Brinkman counts River as perhaps one of the “most critically ill patients that has come to this children’s hospital in the last five or six years.”
After several surgeries and 46 days in the hospital under the care of more than 200 health professionals, River pulled through and was able to go home.
“He had to relearn how to hold a pen, how to swallow liquid and food safely. How to brush his teeth, brush his hair, tie his shoes,” Dr. Brinkman said. “All of his nurses, techs and physical and occupational therapists and speech therapists, case managers and social workers, physicians, residents and students … everybody was rooting for River.”
And Christina Clardy and her family are glad to have River back home.
“It’s important to give thanks for the good in our lives. And to recognize […] the good around us, like in the people in our community,” she said. “When our circumstances aren’t good, those things, those are things that are good. […] I do have moments where I’m like, I can’t believe he’s alive, you know? I’m just really grateful.”
Contact: leonardo.blair@christianpost.com Follow Leonardo Blair on Twitter: @leoblair Follow Leonardo Blair on Facebook: LeoBlairChristianPost
