This young man came to Hope 48 hours after his injury. He was the passenger on a motorcycle that collided with another vehicle. The driver of the motorcycle was killed. He had an open fracture of the left femur and left foot. The femur was apparently not directly exposed. He was treated at the public hospital in town with cleansing of the leg wounds and closure and came to us in a cardboard gutter splint. He had checked out from the hospital when infection set in.;
Praise the Lord for our newly arrived orthopedic doctor who was able to help
him! He gives the following report:
He had a slight fever and slightly rapid pulse. The foot wound was dirty, but the leg was fairly clean. The thigh was very swollen. This was our first trauma case, and we don't really have the OR functioning yet. About all we could do was put him on antibiotics, remove the sutures, clean up the foot wound and place him in traction. The next day we put a traction pin in the tibia to give better control. Now we are waiting to see if there will be serious infection of the leg. If we had an external fixator we might us that. An IM nail would normally be a good method for this, but the questions about the wound make it risky, especially right now. It would have to be a locked nail.
Also, regarding Sammy: Sammy had surgery November 9th. We will post pictures as soon as we seethem.
