Boy hurt in blast expected to survive injuries

Every few hours, Bridger Hunt awakes from the medically induced coma, strapped to his hospital bed with a ventilator tube in his mouth, and panics.

Mindy Carter-Shaw hardly sleeps as she waits for these moments with her son.

She calms him. She asks if he's in pain and he puts his thumb down. She asks him where he itches and he points. He nods the best he can when she asks if he wants information.

She tells her son all she can bear: He was injured. There was an accident.

"He thinks he's just broken his leg," Carter-Shaw said. "He doesn't have any clue how bad his injuries are."

On Pioneer Day, Bridger was riding a bicycle home from a barbecue in Lehi when a homemade firework, said to be made of pipe and compressed black powder, exploded 30 feet away, police said.

Pieces of the pipe cut through the boy's torso and blew apart his left leg. He nearly bled to death as doctors fought to save his life.

"It's a war injury," the boy's stepfather, Travis Shaw, said. "It's what they see in Iraq."

Though Bridger remained in critical condition Sunday, doctors now believe the boy will survive his injuries.

"He's doing well today," Carter-Shaw told reporters Sunday outside Primary Children's Medical Center. "Better than yesterday. Every day, he's progressing."

The medication keeps him from feeling the pain and allows his body to rest and heal. She scratches where he itches.

He asks for information and Carter-Shaw reads her son the well wishes left on the message boards of local media Web sites. Many of the comments — too many, she said — have been directed negatively at Craig Miller, the 45-year-old man who made the firework.

"Everybody ... makes stupid mistakes sometimes," Carter-Shaw said.

The boy's family believes prayer saved Bridger's life. Energy spent lambasting Miller is wasted, she said.

"I'm not angry," Carter-Shaw said. "I need everyone to have positive thoughts for Bridger."

Miller called the family this week to apologize. The man said he would sell his house to help pay for the medical expenses, Carter-Shaw said. The family is uninsured and the bill could be "millions," she said.

"He wants to do anything he can to help," Carter-Shaw said. "He wants to die. I don't want him to feel like that."