Michael laughed.
It happened unexpectedly and without warning. His mother was clowning around Saturday, as she is known to do. And Michael just started laughing.
Nancy Reyer was stunned when Michael suddenly cracked up.
"You sit here and sit here, and talk and sing and talk, and you go, OK, I'm talking myself to death," Reyer said Monday. "And then to get a response like this..." her voice trails off. "It's like a miracle," she said. "It is a miracle."
Reyer had not seen her son's beautiful smile for more than eight months.
Michael suffered third-degree burns over 40 percent of his body May 28 when a liquid ethanol candle exploded in his face. Among the serious complications of his injuries was cardiac arrest, about a week after the accident. Michael was brought back by medical intervention, but his brain was without blood and oxygen for 13 minutes. He suffered traumatic brain injury as a result. He spent nearly four months in pediatric intensive care at Stony Brook University Medical Center, before moving to Blythedale Children's Hospital in Westchester in September.
Reyer has been at his side almost nonstop.
Reyer said she chose Blythedale after researching possible rehab programs, and learned the Valhalla facility is a leader in the rehabilitation of children recovering from brain injuries. He has speech, occupational and physical therapy every day. Doctors are administering a regimen of a drug called amantadine, a drug developed as a medication used to treat influenza and later shown to improve symptoms of Parkinson's disease and cognitive function in patients with serious brain and spinal cord injuries.
"The drug is waking up his brain," Reyer said. His alertness has improved dramatically. He's responding to sounds and touch. He has even said two words: "Ma" and "no."
But this weekend's burst of hilarity was a real milestone for Michael, now 15. The laughter continued on Sunday, when Michael's cousin Kris Smalls played with him on the iPad provided by the hospital for therapy. He started laughing at funny noises — the kind of bodily function sounds all boys find hilarious.
"Kris found us a fart app," Nancy said, giggling at the thought.
The two teenagers entertained themselves and their families by making the iPad emit loud, impolite sounds. And Michael laughed and laughed.
In video sent to RiverheadLOCAL by Kris, Michael is cracking up every time that sound comes blasting from the iPad and the others in the room start laughing. He looks around the room and laughs with them. His eyes are bright and he is very alert.
Reyer's sister, Fran Johnson, said she can't stop watching the video of her nephew laughing. "The doctor told Nancy this is miraculous. I pray it's just the beginning of Michael coming out of this," Johnson said.
Members of the close-knit Riverhead family have been devastated by the accident. Michael and Kris were helping Reyer set up Johnson's backyard for a family Memorial Day Weekend party. Johnson had just tied the knot with her husband Curtis the day before. The "Fire Burner" candle exploded in flames right in the boy's face, slathering his face, neck and upper torso with flaming gel. Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps EMTs rushed him to Stony Brook, the location of the only burn treatment unit in Suffolk County.
Michael spent much of his time at Stony Brook in a medically induced coma. But when the medication was pulled back, Michael didn't wake up. When doctors at Stony Brook decided they had done all they could for the boy, and he was stable enough to move to a rehab center, Reyer brought her son to Blythedale.
She hasn't for a moment lost faith that Michael will come back.
"God hears our prayers and answers them in His own way, in His own time," Reyer said. "You have to let go and let God."