20 October 2008

Trauma update

For those who will know him, the medic in question was a slightly older gentleman with a foreign accent who rides constantly. The accident occurred when a driver turned left in front of him, leaving no time for any sort of reaction, no chance to slow or lay the bike down. Reported combined vehicle speed was in excess of 90 mph.

There was a trauma team activation at the local hospital, followed by 90 minutes of "care", followed by a 40 minute additional wait while the doc decided to order blood and wait for it while the pt's pressure dropped below the level where he could receive additional pain meds for transport. When we arrived at the next hospital, there was another trauma team activation, this time with orthopedic surgeons in the room in less than 5 minutes assessing and evaluating. Surgical fix thus far is an external pelvic halo to hold the pieces together while they wait for the last source of internal bleeding they couldn't locate to heal up. Estimated hospital time right now is 6-9 months, then an extended rehab.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Good grief.

I will definitely say a prayer for him. And I certainly have nothing to complain about; at least I can get up and around with crutches.

Poor guy.

Ellie said...

I figured it out. And I asked Andy who it was. Sounds like he has a long road ahead of him...