Singer Sean Kingston is awake and communicating through head nods, blinking and writing notes in the ICU at Jackson Memorial hospital in Miami, according to TMZ.

That’s good news for Sean’s fans. But why are his reps trying to downplay the extent of his injuries suffered in a Jet Ski accident in Miami last weekend?

According to them, he has a couple of broken bones and swallowed a little water in his lungs.

In reality, Kingston, 21, suffered horrific life threatening injuries to his chest and lungs that go far beyond simply swallowing a little water. But it’s a publicist’s job to make their clients look good.

According to my sources, Kingston suffered a torn artery in his neck and a fractured jaw (when his face slammed into the bridge support), and a punctured lung (from impact with the Jet Ski handlebar). This is why he’s still on a ventilator.

Anyone in the health field can tell you that ICU doctors always try to wean patients off of ventilators as quickly as possible so they can breathe on their own. The fact that Kingston is still on a vent (with a breathing tube down his throat) almost a week after his accident means the injuries to his lungs and chest are more severe than his people are letting on.

Ideally, a ventilator is not the best environment for critical patients to be on because (if they’re awake) they often try to fight the ventilator. For that reason, doctors sedate ventilator patients to allow the vent to do its job without resistance from the patient.

Right now Kingston has an endotracheal tube down his throat, so he can’t speak, eat or drink. Obviously this is not ideal because a breathing tube down the throat is only meant to be temporary (a few days to a week).

If Sean’s lung injuries don’t heal, or he doesn’t start breathing on his own by today or tomorrow, doctors will have to remove the tube from his throat and perform a tracheostomy on him.

This is a more long term (or permanent) solution when the doctor cuts a hole in his neck and passes a breathing tube through that hole into his lungs so he can be more comfortable.