El Paso boy flourishes after lifesaving surgery

Bill Knight and Mark Lambie:

He is, quite simply, the tiniest of warriors.

Santos Escobar, a beautiful and engaging little boy who has yet to even reach his second birthday, recently underwent surgery at El Paso Children’s Hospital — a surgery to a skull that was fused, a skull that would not grow as the brain grew on the inside.

It is a one-in-a-million case, the doctor said. One requiring a four-hour surgery that was the first of its kind in El Paso.

Santos was born with pansynostosis, a rare condition in which the bones in his skull had fused together, keeping it from expanding to accommodate his growing brain.

The condition left Santos without the ability to walk or really even talk. And, without this surgery and a smaller procedure in April, he would never have danced, never have had that life to enjoy.

The prognosis for the beautiful little boy was simple and grim without the surgery.