A crash took his arm. His community is carrying him forward.

Where was Liam?

It was 9:45 p.m. on Friday, May 1, and Fanya O’Donoghue was not pleased.

Her 16-year-old son had permission to go to the driving range and Chick-fil-A with friends. But the Calvert Hall sophomore was supposed to have returned to their Timonium home 15 minutes ago.

She pulled up Liam’s location on her phone. He was in a wooded area a few miles north, near the intersection of Merrymans Mill and Poplar Hill roads. Had Liam gone to a party without permission? That was out of character for her eldest son, an honor student.

Liam’s phone went straight to voicemail, so his mom texted some of the boys he’d been hanging out with that night: Andrew Sober, a bright and charming Dulaney High School sophomore and one of Liam’s best friends since elementary school. Orion Kicklighter, the sweet and easygoing neighbor and fellow Calvert Hall sophomore football player. Ryan Duvall, 18, the oldest of the group, respectful and considerate.

None replied.

Donal O’Donoghue, Liam’s dad, headed out to the front steps, preparing to give Liam a stern lecture when he and the others pulled up.

They never did.

About 45 minutes later, Fanya watched as Liam’s phone location shifted south, landing at the Baltimore County Fire Department station in Cockeysville.

Donal sped there while Fanya stayed home with their younger boys, texting and calling other parents. One mother flagged something chilling on the Turnbull Brockmeyer personal injury law firm’s Facebook page. There had been an accident at Merrymans Mill and Poplar Hill roads, the spot where Liam’s phone had been.

“Single vehicle wrapped around a tree,” it said. “1 person deceased on scene.“

Three others were critically wounded, including one whose arm had been amputated, the law firm said. Two medevac helicopters were flying to Warren Elementary School to airlift the victims.

“No!” Fanya screamed. “No. No. No.”

The boys

Liam and Andrew met in third grade and spent their free time riding bikes around their neighborhood, kicking a soccer ball and playing video games.

A photo from that time shows Liam, freckled and with a rugby player’s stocky build, slinging his arm around Andrew, a sleek blond soccer player with a confident grin.

Each day the school bus carried the boys from their homes in Hunt Valley Station along densely wooded Merrymans Mill Road to Jacksonville Elementary.

When the O’Donoghue family moved to Timonium’s Springlake neighborhood and Liam transferred to Pot Spring Elementary, the boys remained close. They bunked together at Camp Puh’Tok in Monkton each summer. When they made new friends — as both did easily — they introduced them to the other.

That’s how Liam came to be friends with Ryan, Andrew’s good buddy from martial arts. And that’s how Andrew got to know Orion, Liam’s neighbor and Calvert Hall teammate.

On a chilly spring evening 3 1/2 weeks ago, the boys drifted over to the O’Donoghues’ home, shooting hoops in the driveway as Liam finished a paper.

A fifth boy, another close friend, joined them for a trip to a driving range and Chick-fil-A in Hunt Valley. But he said he felt ill and left the restaurant early, a twist of fate that might have saved his life.

After leaving Chick-fil-A, the boys headed east through roads shaded by the tall trees of the Loch Raven watershed. A few clouds scudded across the full moon.

These dark roads have been the site of tragedy before. Twice in the spring of 1983, young lovers were shot as they sat in cars at Merrymans Mill and Poplar Hill; one woman died. The case has never been solved.

Andrew, who turned 16 last fall, was driving that night. According to police, his 2016 Toyota Prius was heading south on Poplar Hill when it veered off the road and struck a tree.

Liam, in the rear right seat, briefly blacked out, his parents later learned. When he awoke, he quickly realized the severity of the crash.

His left arm was gone, and his friends were badly injured.

Liam’s phone was dead. He felt around the car with his right arm until he found another boy’s phone. He managed to call 911 before blacking out again.

Save us, he told the operator. I don’t want to die.

Journeys

The O’Donoghues prayed out loud the whole drive to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where Liam had been airlifted.

Let him be OK.

Let him be OK.

Let our baby be OK.

Arriving at the waiting room shortly before midnight, they quickly found Andrew’s stunned parents and embraced them.

The Sobers were brought back to see Andrew first. The O’Donoghues kept vigil in the waiting room, praying for their son and the other boys who had come to feel like family.

Around 1:30 a.m., Ryan’s mother, Michele Duvall, called Fanya O’Donoghue with devastating news: Ryan, her “old soul,” whose faith had deepened in recent years, had been pronounced dead at the scene of the crash.

“This is not how it’s supposed to happen,” Duvall said later. “You’re not supposed to lose your kids.”

Reeling with grief for Ryan, and worried about Liam’s prognosis, Fanya panicked when surgeons asked to speak to her and Donal in a side room.

Liam was going to be OK, the surgeons said. Mostly.

He had been lucid on the helicopter ride to Shock Trauma, reciting his mother’s phone number and asking someone to call her — a sign he had escaped serious brain injury. He had broken the femurs in both legs, but those would heal.

His left arm, however, could not be saved despite hours of painstaking surgery.

“So then it turned into a whole different journey for us,” she said.

As they prayed for Andrew, who remained unconscious, Fanya and Donal shepherded Liam through four additional surgeries in 10 days.

Surgeons implanted titanium rods to stabilize his broken femurs. They cleaned up his shoulder wound. They moved a muscle from his back to his shoulder to eventually support a prosthetic arm. They did a skin graft.

Donal described Shock Trauma staff members, from top surgeons to maintenance workers, as “angels.”

“The compassion from everyone who works here and the genuine care,” he said. “You can’t fake that. It comes from the heart.”

The nurse who helped bring Liam from the helicopter stopped by his room frequently to say hello. Several Calvert Hall alums on staff popped in periodically, saying, “How’s the Hall man?”

Dr. Robert O’Toole, the head of orthopedic surgery at Shock Trauma who operated on Liam’s legs, said the boy’s positive outlook impressed him.

“He’s an inspiration to all of us here at Shock,” he said.

While the O’Donoghues took shifts by Liam’s hospital bed, their community sprang into action. Parents from Pot Spring Elementary and Ridgely Middle schools stepped in to help with the other O’Donoghue kids: Tommy, 9, and twins Finn and Brody, 14, carting them to sports practices and trying to provide some normality.

Neighbors made a spreadsheet of tasks to support the family, signing up to mow their lawn, walk their dog and bring over meals. Fanya’s former co-workers at her consulting firm made gift baskets to give to first responders. Donal’s family members, who live in Ireland, booked tickets to Baltimore. Fanya’s mother, Nadya Workman, rushed back from a vacation to watch the boys.

The faculty members, students and parents from Calvert Hall wrapped the O’Donoghues and the Kicklighters in love. A GoFundMe has raised more than $175,000. The money will help cover the cost of Liam’s prosthetics — which will likely cost more than $1 million over his lifetime — travel for medical care, counseling and living expenses while his mother takes care of him.

“Everyone has stepped up in their own way to give comfort and try to help us,” Donal said.

While helping Liam prepare for and recuperate from his surgeries, the O’Donoghues learned more heartbreaking news: Andrew, Liam’s closest childhood friend, would never recover.

Six days after the crash, family and friends lined a Shock Trauma hallway for a silent walk of honor as Andrew, an organ donor, was slowly rolled to an operating room. Hospital workers brought Liam down in his hospital bed to say goodbye.

“We take great comfort that Andrew’s final act of kindness was to donate his vital organs to save multiple lives,” his mother, Karen Sober, wrote in a social media post.

Fanya and Donal attended Andrew’s funeral on Mother’s Day, at the same synagogue where they celebrated his bar mitzvah just a few years before.

Three days later, they attended Ryan’s funeral in Harford County. Liam watched a livestream of the service from his hospital bed with Nadya, his maternal grandmother, by his side.

“It was a really emotional day,” Liam said. “Ryan Duvall was one of my best friends. There were a lot of tears.”

Amid the grief and pain, Liam’s surgeons hatched a plan to lift the boy’s spirits.

Calvert Hall’s JV rugby team, of which Liam was a member, was headed to the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association championship on Wednesday, a few hours after Ryan’s funeral.

Could Liam somehow go to the game to see his teammates?

Under the tent

The Calvert Hall Cardinals stretched under moody gray skies on a field at Mount St. Joseph’s High School, eyeing their opponents, the Archbishop Spalding Cavaliers.

In normal times the Cardinals, who had been undefeated all season, would be thinking only of victory. But these were not normal times.

A black ambulance pulled up to the field, and two workers carefully lowered a hospital bed. A murmur went through the boys: Liam was here.

Flanked by a Shock Trauma nurse, the workers rolled him down the field as members of both teams clapped and cheered on the sidelines. Liam, nestled among pillows and blankets, beamed in his red rugby jacket.

As he watched under a tent, players from both sides gathered to pray. Then the Cardinals marched into the tent to give Liam a fist bump.

“What’s up, Liam?” one said. “This one’s for you, bro.”

“Miss you, bro,” said another.

Soon, the game began. Dozens of burly teenage boys hurtled down the field, knocking each other off their feet and tussling for the ball.

Donal, who played rugby growing up in Ireland, bounced along the sidelines, yelling, “Big push, fellas.” The twins served as team water boys, rushing onto the field at each break.

Fanya ruffled Liam’s hair. Although surgeons had suggested the outing, Fanya had spent hours negotiating with hospital executives to find a way to bring her son to the game.

“It’s amazing to just get out of the hospital,” Liam said. “The fresh air feels amazing.”

“The color is coming back to his cheeks,” Fanya said.

Then came a surprise. Orion, who had been released from the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Intensive Care Unit the day before, walked up with a brace on his wrist and a bandage around his knee.

The boys embraced, and Orion sank into a chair next to Liam. A friend from the football team wrapped an arm around each boy’s shoulder.

At halftime, the Cardinals were up 24-10. The nurse checked Liam’s vitals. His teammates, dripping with sweat, popped into the tent to say hello. Some were tentative, others boisterous.

“We’re gonna win this for you, Liam,” one said.

Cardinals coach Chris Connolly joked that he worried the boys would jump on Liam in their delight at seeing him again after the crash.

“When it happened, it ripped our hearts out,” he said. “But having him here today puts them back in.”

Fanya and Donal stood near Liam’s bed as a light rain splashed.

The Cardinals would cruise to victory over Spalding, claiming the divisional title, and the jubilant boys would storm into Liam’s tent.

The days and years ahead would be arduous. It would be another week before Liam would be released from Shock Trauma and moved to Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital for rehabilitation.

“It was a little sad saying bye to all the nurses who took care of me” at Shock Trauma, Liam said. “They took such amazing care of me; they listened.”

The O’Donoghues will have to adjust their home so Liam can navigate it with a wheelchair. He’ll need to relearn simple tasks, such as tying his shoes, with one hand. Eventually, he’ll be fitted with a prosthetic.

Recovery has “had its ups and downs,” Liam said last week. “After I first woke up, I felt pretty shaky and vulnerable. But I’ve had so much support from my family, my friends, my community. That’s made it so much easier — knowing everyone was behind me and I could just focus on healing."

Liam — who took his first unsupported steps late last week — hopes to be released from the hospital around June 1 and visit Calvert Hall before classes end. The management of Springlake Swim Club has told him he still has a summer job waiting for him at the snack bar.

The costs of recovery are daunting. Each prosthetic arm costs $50,000 to $100,000 but lasts only three to five years. Fanya, who was laid off from her consulting job late last year, is planning to devote herself full time to Liam until he’s back on his feet.

But at the championship game, Liam and his family weren’t thinking about the future. They felt immense gratitude for the present: for the Calvert Hall community and family and friends who supported them. For the celebrities, including Lamar Jackson, Joe Flacco and Derrick Henry, who sent videos cheering Liam. For the dedicated staff at Shock Trauma.

The game resumed, and the players pounded down the field. The rain fell harder, and the parents tucked blankets around Liam and Orion.

A gust of wind lifted the edge of the tent. The parents and coaches leaped to steady it, sheltering as best they could the boys inside.