Carter Swathwood

Carter is a senior at Harrison High School and was the Co-President for his High School Dance Marathon! Recently, he reached a milestone of raising more than $40,000 for Riley Hospital for Children! Carter and his family travel to many dance marathons throughout the year to share his story and educate others. When he’s not helping give back to Riley, he’s running in his school’s track and cross country teams.

"On October 7, 2009 after dealing with a high fever and cough for a couple of days we decided to take our 5-vear-old son Carter to the doctor. He was given breathing treatments, tests were done, and Carter was admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of H1N1 and fears of a secondary bacterial pneumonia infection. The doctors feared that Carter had been working so hard to breathe for man hours, and that he could stop breathing. He was intubated and transferred from Home Hospital to Riley in a helicopter. Carter was admitted to the PICU and the doctors worked tirelessly to find the right combination of meds and breathing machines to help him.
The doctors and nurses at Riley were very helpful with our stay there. The doctors were very knowledgeable, but explained things in terms that I would understand. The nurses were very helpful in many ways. I also had a 4-year-old and 3-month-old at the time. I was still nursing my youngest and they took no time at all to provide me with bottles to store my breast milk in.”

⁃ Melissa Swathwood

Carter has grown very close to our PUDM community over the years, and we are excited to see him on campus in Fall 2022!