CHL Mississippi RiverKings

Le Bonheur "Change Bandits" will be at RiverKings Game

Published on February 17, 2004 under Central Hockey League (CHL)
Mississippi RiverKings News Release


SOUTHAVEN, Miss.—The Memphis RiverKings will spotlight Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center on Feb. 19 when the ‘Kings take on the Fort Worth Brahmas at the DeSoto Civic Center at 7:05 p.m.

Le Bonheur volunteers will be stationed at the DeSoto Civic Center doors to collect spare change from anyone wishing to unload their spare pennies and nickels on their way inside. The collection will be done in conjunction with the organization's "Change Bandit" program that runs in the fall as part of the Le Bonheur radiothon on 98.1 FM "The Cat."

RiverKings team captain Don Parsons and his family spent time at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center at the beginning of the season when his son Maddox, then six weeks old, was hospitalized for breathing problems.

Parsons, his wife Kristen, and their three children were traveling home from a roller hockey tournament in Tennessee. While passing through Jackson, Tenn., Maddox began making strange noises. When Kristen turned around to look at him, he was blue.

"It was a miracle, really," she said. "To the left of the red light where we were stopped was a hospital. We were able to take him right in."

Inside, doctors found Maddox's oxygen levels, which should have been about 90, were hovering dangerously low at 30. They didn't have the proper equipment to treat him fully, and the weather was too bad to airlift him. So they sent the Parsons via ambulance to Le Bonheur, where Maddox's symptoms resurfaced.

"They were wonderful," Kristen said. "We were in the special care unit for a week. All the doctors and nurses were just so nice to us. There are so many kids on each floor, all with serious illnesses. It's just amazing what they do there."

The hospital has an excellent reputation in pediatric neurosurgery. Liver, kidney and multi-organ transplants are also performed at Le Bonheur. In 1959, the first open-heart surgery in the Mid-South was performed there; the hospital opened Memphis' first intensive care unit the same year. In 2002, an endoscopic surgery suite, the first of its kind in the Mid-South, was opened to perform minimally-invasive surgical procedures in children.

The hospital is a not-for-profit institution, governed by a board of volunteer citizens, and is a division of Methodist Healthcare.

"Of the more than 130,000 children we treat, about 60 percent have no form of insurance," Special Events Coordinator Finy Shirley said. "That translates into about $45 million that is not reimbursed."

To purchase RiverKings tickets and to help Le Bonheur continue their mission to provide a place of care, love and hope to every child, call Shirley at 901-572-5988.

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Central Hockey League Stories from February 17, 2004


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