Trauma

A guy got run over by a bus on Wednesday and was dropped off at the front door by said bus. Here's his x-ray.  There are at least 6 fractures that I have been able to identify.

He lost essentially his entire blood volume into his abdominal cavity. He's a relatively rare blood type for here, and since we give whole blood, we don't give unmatched blood (i.e. in the U.S. you can give O negative blood to anyone, O positive to anyone who is Rh positive, etc.).  Our list was short of potential donors of this blood type (B positive). One of the ladies who works in our office is B positive but had already donated less than a month prior (our cutoff).  She got on the phone with her brothers and father and encouraged them to come in. It sounds like she may have done a little reprimanding with that encouragement! They dutifully came in to be checked and her father, sure enough, was also B positive. He gave a unit. Our two ER doctors who were taking care of the patient are also B positive so they both gave a unit.

Our two doctors who just gave blood, still working

Our surgeon took him to surgery after debating whether it would be of any use. After coming out of surgery, he said that the patient would surely have died if he had decided not to operate. As it was, he was able to stop the bleeding that was in a really difficult place, did a sigmoid colectomy as the intestines had ruptured, and put pins into multiple places in the pelvis to hold the bones together as they heal.

The first night was pretty hairy- high fever, high heart rate, but he was breathing on his own and keeping his oxygen saturation up.  Today, just two days later, he has no fever, his heart rate is almost normal, he is about to get his 7th unit of blood, his abdominal pain is going down, and there is poop coming out of his colostomy. It is nothing short of a miracle.

He's definitely not out of the woods. A trauma patient like this has many many potential complications that could arise during his recovery, but for now, we are thankful for how God is working to heal him despite our limited medical capabilities here on the edge of the jungle.

He's from the same nearby village from where the 9 young men were lost on the boat. The community is praying for him even as they grieve their other losses. We join them in thankfulness today.