Tuesday, February 3, 2009

What can happen when it rains

I was playing tennis with Josh today when it started to rain. It often rains here, so it isn't that big of a deal, but it sure isn't good tennis weather. Neither of us wanted to stop, to concede the game to the other (our series was tied at 1-1), so we kept playing. After I beat him, he still wanted to play another game or two (it has something to do with losing). We played one more game and he won, so I said we had better head home since it was still raining pretty good.
I got home and got ready to take call. Not long after that, Michelle, the medical student calls from the ER and says she needs some help. I head down to find out what is happening. 2 kids and one adult are in the ER needing to be seen when I got there. They were apparently at a church service of some sort when it started to rain. During the storm a tree fell on the church and came down and injured these 2 individuals. The adult - had a laceration of his shoulder, but more importantly blood in his abdomen, likely a ruptured spleen. I quickly got Jim involved and we got him ready for surgery. The two kids were more fortunate. Pori ended up with his big toe and part of his 2nd toe amputated by the tree. I had to use a bone cutter and rondeur to remove some of the bone in order to sew it together. There were a lot of bleeders and I got sprayed with blood pretty good on my shirt. Benjamin, the 2nd kid suffered a laceration to his lower leg that shaved off some of his skin, but also took some of the bone with it. Part of his tibia was attached to the skin flap that was hanging there. Michelle cut off the bone and then sewed the flap back together. Thankfully we were able to care for them, but it took us a few hours to get them all stitched up.
I am heading to Thailand for the CMDE medical conference in a few days. I am not sure if I will have internet access while there, so this may be my last post for a while, but keep checking in case I can post while there.