2-year-old crushed by gate slowly recovering

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TONGANOXIE, Kan. (AP) -- A 2-year-old Tonganoxie girl who was seriously injured when a 300-pound gate fell on her head is making an unexpected recovery.

Shortly after Brooklyn Sickman was hit by the gate on Sept. 26 in rural Tonganoxie, doctors told her parents they doubted she would live. The impact broke Brooklyn's cheek bones, sinus cavity, right orbit around her eye and the back of her head.

But after months of treatment at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., the young girl is making progress. Her dad, Jeff Sickman, says her brain is not healed completely, but it also is not getting worse.

And each day Brooklyn, who will celebrate her third birthday on Dec. 16, makes progress. She remembers family members, and she can now see out of one eye. And she's been taken off her feeding tube.

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Information from: Lawrence Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com