Successful surgery enables child to hear for the first time

“Daddy loves you.”

These words, the first ever heard by three-year-old Grayson Clamp, shocked the toddler and has caught the world’s attention.

Grayson was born Dec. 29, 2009 with a condition called CHARGE , leaving him with a congenital heart defect, severely limited vision in his left eye and deafness.

After undergoing an eight-hour surgical procedure at UNC Hospitals in April 2013, Grayson became the first child in North Carolina to receive Auditory Brainstem Implant surgery, the first step in regaining hearing.

Stephanie Mahin, UNC Health Care media relations and broadcast manager, captured Grayson’s first time hearing a month after the surgery in a video with 1.3 million views on YouTube.

It was one of three UNC Health Care videos nominated for the Midsouth Regional Emmy Award. The awards ceremony was held in Tennessee last weekend. Even though the video about Grayson didn’t place, a video “Spartan!”, which profiles nurses running the Spartan obstacle course, won UNC Health Care’s first Emmy at the competition.

Nicole and Len Clamp, of Charlotte,fostered Grayson in 2010 when he was about seven weeks old and later adopted him.

“We had already started taking care of his medical issues, and we started down the path of doing something with his hearing,” said Nicole Clamp. “So it seemed like it was meant to be.”

The couple sent emails asking for help, and were soon referenced to UNC Hospitals and Craig Buchman, a UNC doctor specializing in ear, head and neck surgery..

Buchman said he believed Grayson to be a good candidate for an FDA-approved clinical trial of an auditory brain stem implant. Ideal candidates are children younger than five who lack a cochlear nerve or cochlea, have bad hearing loss and are in good cognitive condition.

Nicole Clamp said on May 15, when Grayson’s device was turned on, he was able to hear.

“We knew it would work, but we didn’t know what his reaction would be, what he would do,” she said. Grayson didn’t cry, she said.

Mahin said capturing Grayson’s moment was one of her favorite stories to tell.

“It’s a pleasure for me to go to Nashville and not just represent UNC Health Care, but to represent the surgeons that performed this amazing surgery,” she said before the Emmys last week. “I’m representing the Clamp family, Nicole Clamp, Len Clamp. I’m representing Grayson.”

Buchman said there has been a spike in inquires about the surgery since the video was released. UNC has performed the trial on three children and is approved to operate on seven more children. Buchman said separate trials in other cities have collectively performed four surgeries.

“Every day in medicine we get involved in patient care with the hopes of making people better,” he said. “It took us about nine years to the point of doing that surgery and to see it culminate today is a fantastic opportunity and really gratifying.”

Buchman emphasized further that it took a village of surgeons, audiologists and speech pathologists to make the surgery a success.

Grayson has begun to speak and can distinguish sounds like his younger brother Ethan’s voice, Nicole Clamp said.

“He’s really persistent, and he’s come a long way,” Nicole Clamp said.

“It’s been kind of a slow but steady process and he just is the most loving child you could ever be around.”

university@dailytarheel.com