Henry Cheng is doing far better than anybody thought he’d be doing at this point, his mother Kris Cheng said.
“Over the last couple of weeks, he’s really been blowing minds. He wasn’t expected to regain this level of consciousness — in some opinions — ever,” she said. “Every day, he’s showing us more and more.”
Just after 1 a.m. on April 2, the 15-year-old Juneau-Douglas High School student was out the road with a friend and accidentally fell between 50 and 80 feet off a cliff.
“It was dark. He didn’t know that there was a cliff and stepped over a guardrail and over the cliff,” Kris Cheng said. She read the toxicology reports and said no alcohol or drugs were involved.
The rescue effort took about two and a half hours. Capital City Fire/Rescue’s rope rescue team rappelled down the cliff and used a boat to help extract him. Juneau Police Department was also involved in the rescue, said spokesperson Erann Kalwara. Neither departments put out a press release about the accident or rescue.
Henry was transported to Bartlett Regional Hospital and was medevaced to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center later that morning.
Henry suffered a severe traumatic brain injury, his mom said, and was unconscious in the intensive care unit for 16 days before being transferred to Seattle Children’s Hospital. Miraculously, he didn’t have any broken bones.
Kris Cheng hasn’t left Henry’s side since the accident.
“I actually have a bed in his room right by him. In ICU at Harborview, we just got a chair and we would trade out and take a couple hour naps here and there,” she said. “Now I’m just by his side helping him with his therapy, his daily care and encouraging him, whether he likes to hear my voice or not.”
Henry hasn’t been able to consistently communicate. He’s been relearning and will continue to relearn how to do everything, Kris Cheng said. On Wednesday, he was transferred from the medical unit to the rehabilitation unit.
“He’s sitting up on his own in a wheelchair. His strength is for sure growing every day. His ability to sit up for longer periods is improving, and he’s working on turning over,” she said.
Kris Cheng said Henry could be at Children’s Hospital for another four to six weeks. From there she hopes he’ll be able to go home, but things are still uncertain.
“It’s hard to say. I don’t think this is something you ever fully recover from, to get back to where he was. No one can know,” she said.
A violin player since about age 7, Henry is well known in Juneau’s music community. He’s a member of Juneau Strings Ensembles, including Aurora Strings and Crimson Quartet, and the Juneau Symphony.
Board president of the Juneau Strings Ensembles Sarah Olsen said Henry is highly skilled, very advanced and just an all-around good kid.
“He’s super friendly and gets along with everyone,” Olsen said. “I just see him as really consistent and one of the kids that other kids in (Aurora Strings) look up to.”
Several instrument groups, including the Juneau Strings Ensembles, Juneau Symphony, JAMM and Mendenhall Quartet, are performing in a fundraising concert for Henry on Sunday, 2-4 p.m., at the Juneau Arts & Culture Center. The show is called “Making Music for Henry.”
“This was a way for us to get together and play music and celebrate Henry,” Olsen said.
Henry’s father Vince Cheng said Henry has tutored other students in violin and has played on tourist boats in the summer. He excels at school and loves welding class. He’s also a talented athlete. As a sophomore this year, Henry made the varsity soccer team.
“I really think the reason why is because he worked out so hard six months before that, lifting weights, running. He’s a determined kind of guy. Once he sets his mind to something, he works really hard,” said Vincent Cheng.
It’s the same determination, he said, that’s allowing his son to fight for his life.
“They didn’t expect to find him alive, and they didn’t expect him to live the first couple of days. He’s made it through and is surprising everyone every day. He’s definitely a hard worker. You can tell when he’s in rehab, he’s working hard. You can physically see it,” he said.
Henry’s team members on the JDHS soccer team want Henry and his family to know that they’re fighting along with him.
When Anchorage’s Service High came to Juneau at the end of April, the soccer team held a fundraiser for Henry and collected more than $5,000 in one weekend.
“We were just trying to find a way to support the family,” JDHS varsity soccer coach Gary Lehnhart said. “I can only imagine and I heard a bunch of parents who said, ‘You know, what if this was my family, it would be so hard to do,’ so many of the soccer families were willing to help knowing that it was just a little something we could do.”
Lehnhart and the team have also been wearing red bracelets to match one that Henry was given a year ago and is still wearing as he recovers.
“The bracelets were our way of just trying to take a piece of Henry with us not just in the games but all through the day knowing that he has a battle to fight, and we wanted to be there to fight it with him in any way we could even if it was just in terms of thinking about him and supporting him in that way,” Lehnhart said.
The team had to receive a waiver from the Alaska School Activities Association to wear them during games as that’s not normally allowed of athletes.
Lehnhart said he thinks about Henry and his recovery every day.
“It’s constantly in my mind,” he said. “He’s the kind of kid that makes coaching rewarding.”
The red bracelet says, “Live your dreams.”
“That’s Henry,” Vince Cheng said. “He just loves life and has fun.”
Kris Cheng and Vince Cheng have three other sons: James, 18, Gabe, 11, and Sam, 10. Kris Cheng said she and her family are doing as well as they are due to the support they’ve received from family, friends, coworkers and the Juneau community.
“The fact that my family and friends in the entire town have come out to rally behind him is a huge, almost overwhelming, boost of support,” Kris Cheng said. “It really is mind-blowing how much love our community has, and how it just comes flooding out when something like this happens.”
• Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneau.empire.com.
