RINGWOOD, IL — For 40 minutes, John Schwarz drove, his mind racing and zigzagging between hope and worst-case scenarios — which for him, is unusual given his daily pursuit of mindfulness and calm and the meditative messages he shares with a large social media following on social media.
Minutes earlier on Monday morning, the Ringwood resident and father of two children had hastily left the horse camp where his 8-year-old son, Sagan, was enrolled in was to have been a week of instruction in the care of horses. But less than an hour after Sagan arrived, John Schwarz and his wife received a frantic phone call from a camp counselor, alerting them that there had been an accident and that they needed to come immediately.
Now, four days after Schwarz says Sagan sustained a fractured orbital socket, a fractured cheekbone, and a hairline fracture in his jaw after being kicked in the face by a horse at the camp, the young Ringwood boy and his family face a long and expensive road of uncertainty while attempting to piece together exactly what — and why — the accident took place.
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The family recently launched a GoFundMe effort to help cover the costs of medical bills associated with the accident. John Schwarz, who has a TikTok channel dedicated to meditation and mindfulness practices, still has difficulty discussing the ordeal without becoming emotional. But just four days after the accident, many of the details of which Schwarz says his son does not remember, Schwarz and his family are moving forward as best they can while continuing to seek answers.
Sagan Schwarz did not sustain any permanent eye damage, internal bleeding, or brain injury in the accident, his father says. But first responders estimate that Sagan was unconscious for about 15 minutes before he spoke to his father at Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, where he was rushed after the accident after seeing his watching his son loaded onto an ambulance on a stretcher.
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Schwarz says his heart dropped when he was approached by a hospital chaplain who asked if he was Sagan’s father. But the chaplain then told him that Sagan was alert and had been responding to doctors — news that caused his father to drop to his knees and begin weeping.
“It was just such a relief,” John Schwarz said.
Sagan will undergo the first of multiple surgeries in Chicago next week, his father said. But in the past four days, Schwarz says he has been overwhelmed by the support he and his family have received, largely on the TikTok channel where he has been posting emotional updates in the days after the accident.
Since his post with news of his son’s accident, Schwarz says he has received more than 300,000 comments and messages from fellow TikTokers, which he has been reading to his son since Sagan returned home late Monday night.
“I truly believe it’s those thoughts, those (online) projections that are making him recover and bounce back fast,” Schwarz told Patch on Friday in response to a TikTok video that has been viewed more than 9 million times, he said.
Schwarz, who runs the TikTok channel The One Called Jai, says he hesitated to post his son’s ordeal on social media. Normally, the channel is reserved for group meditation and mindfulness sessions that he leads. But after the initial outpouring of support that came from his first video update on Sagan’s condition, Schwarz says that he now hopes that his family’s ordeal can have a positive effect on how people treat one another.
Since Schwarz launched the GoFundMe which has a goal of raising $150,000 toward his son’s care, more than $7,800 has been raised. Doctors have said that after his first surgery to repair the broken eye socket, Sagan will likely need to undergo further procedures in the coming years as the bone grows.
Schwarz says that his son remembers little of what happened after he was assigned to collect rocks in a bucket in a closed-off pen. Schwarz, who requested that the name of the camp not be published, remains uncertain why his son was asked to be in that role an hour after arrived on Monday morning. While he and his wife work to sort out the details of the traumatic incident, he has been comforted by the words of strangers that have come his way on the popular social media platform he uses so often.
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In one of the TikTok videos he has posted since the accident Schwarz wonders aloud while it takes a child’s injury or buildings being blown up or countries to be invaded for people to put aside their differences. But since his son was injured, Schwarz says he has regained trust in humanity in the response directed toward Sagan and his family.
“Life is too short and too precious and all these things we’re fighting about are meaningless,” Schwarz told Patch. “If we can all find a way to just embrace equality, love, and gratitude for one another, our world changes instantly.
He added: “This is the worst thing that has happened in my life, but it’s showing me the best in humanity I’ve ever seen.”
Schwarz said that since the accident, Sagan has been allowed to return home and is resting comfortably. He will undergo further care and surgical procedures at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago and fears the long road that is ahead. On Thursday night, Schwarz said that he told his son how scared the entire family is as a way of sharing in his son’s feelings but admitted that he didn’t want to show too much emotion to help keep his son calm.
In an honest moment, Schwarz said that his son looked at him and said, ‘Dad, it’s OK for you to share your feelings with me.”
For Schwarz, who has never asked his social media following for anything and struggles with the idea of asking for financial support to cover medical bills, that moment shared with his son showed him that it is OK for him to display the openness and honesty he asks from his TikTok audience. While it is still difficult for him to ask for help, Schwarz again has seen the power of community — even on a popular social media platform subscribed to by millions — work in mysterious ways.
On a regular basis on his TikTok videos, Schwarz opens the channel up for anyone to speak and to share the story of hardships they may be experiencing. Now, with the roles reversed, Schwarz finds himself as the vulnerable one while he and his family endure daily hardships surrounding Sagan’s health and well-being.
“If I’m asking people to be honest about their lives, I have to be honest with them,” Schwarz told Patch on Friday.
“But when you look at Sagan’s face, he is physically healing very fast, and I honestly believe it’s all this love he’s getting that’s helping him do that. …there’s a lot of people out there thinking about my son and to me, that’s just crazy. It’s beautiful, but it’s mind-blowing.”
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