Boy Suffers Through Multiple Broken Bones to Rescue Kitten

July 27, 2010 -- There's a kitten in Texas that owes one of its eight remaining lives to 9-year-old Clayton Williams.

After getting stuck in a tree last Tuesday, Clayton heard it crying and climbed the tree to rescue it.

But the kitten fell to the ground, and so did Clayton.

Clayton saw the kitten wasn't moving, and knew he needed to get it home.

The problem was that as a result of the fall, Clayton broke more than a dozen bones on the left side of his body.

"He said he army-crawled on his right arm and leg with the cat in his mouth," said Tiffany Williams, Clayton's mother. "The house is about 30 or 35 feet away."

Tiffany didn't know what happened until she heard Clayton whimpering outside.

"When I opened the door, he wanted to take the kitten to the vet," said Tiffany.

But she saw how badly he was hurt.

"Clayton looked at me and said, 'Mommy, I just broke my arm,'" Tiffany said. "I grabbed the phone book to stabilize it and wrapped it, and then I went to stand him up and take him to the car. Then he said, 'Mommy, I can't stand up,' so I knew he was in trouble.'"

The kitten was still unresponsive, but she had to tend to her injured son, so Tiffany said she put the animal in a safe place outside the house.

After convincing Clayton they needed to get him help first, she managed to get him to the car and drive to the local hospital, about 40 minutes away.

"He was really calm until we got to the bumps; the bumps made everything start hurting," Tiffany said. "When we got there, he was pale and his lips were white and he started screaming."

Clayton had to be moved about two hours away to Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, and doctors discovered about 16 broken or fractured bones on the left side of his body, including bones in his hand, wrist, shoulder blade, hip and elbow.

"The injury to his elbow was much more severe than what we normally see," said Dr. Milan Sen, the orthopedic surgeon at Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital who performed Clayton's surgery.

Despite his ordeal, Clayton refused pain medication after surgery, much to the surprise of his mother and his nurse.

"The nurse couldn't believe he didn't want to take his pain meds," said Tiffany.

Sen said Clayton was probably in some pain, mainly from the surgery itself. While he said he didn't know that Clayton refused his pain medication, Sen recalled that Clayton was quiet.

"He was pretty stoic, and wasn't communicating very much," he said.