Family seeks better brain injury care

Almost two years ago, Garrison Leif Sandberg, a junior at Napa High, was near death from injuries he sustained as a passenger in a DUI-related crash near Napa. Today, at 19, Sandberg walks without a cane. His shaking has subsided and he can speak.

Key to his ongoing recovery, his parents, Eric and Suzanne Sandberg said, was the medical and rehabilitation therapy Leif Sandberg received for nine months at Centre for Neuro Skills in Bakersfield.

However, that long-term inpatient therapy, which ended in April 2012 and cost about $300,000, was not covered under the familys Blue Shield health policy plan, the Sandbergs said.

The Sandbergs will travel to Sacramento Wednesday to show support for Senate Bill 320 that would prohibit insurance companies from denying long-term therapy for brain injury patients. The Sandbergs will take a stack of signatures in support of the bill, which the California Senate Health Committee is scheduled to discuss.

State Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, introduced the bill in February with the backing of the Brain Injury Association of California, which estimates about 350,000 Californians live with a traumatic brain injury. If approved, S.B. 320 would take effect Jan. 1, 2014.

The goal is to come home as a whole person so you dont become a burden to our society, Suzanne Sandberg said Friday. Leif is an example of somebody who will be productive in his lifetime.

Eric Sandberg, whose insurance changed in February, said his sons in-patient therapy would have been reduced to 20 visits a year after September 2011 once he became able to go from his bed to his wheelchair and the bathroom. Instead, he and his wife took their youngest child to Bakersfield, where Leif continued in-patient therapy for another nine months until he was considered well enough to come home in Napa last April.

A year later, Leif Sandberg continues to improve as he undergoes a full day of counseling along with physical, occupational and speech therapy once every other week at the Centre for Neuro Skills campus in Emeryville.

Leif Sandberg, who was 17 at the time of the June 10, 2011 crash on Dry Creek Road north of Orchard Avenue, also receives speech and physical therapy once a week at Queen of the Valley Medical Center, care thats covered by California Childrens Services, a state program.

Eric Sandberg, who works for an environmental drilling company, estimates his sons medical bills, including the emergency care he received for about a month at San Francisco General Hospital, has cost more than $2 million.

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Family seeks better brain injury care