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American Morning

Doctors Give Press Briefing on Condition of Woman Attacked by Shark

Aired September 04, 2001 - 11:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: And we want to take you live right now to Norfolk, Virginia to the Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Doctors are giving a briefing there on the condition of that 23-year-old woman who was attacked by a shark. Let's listen.

DR. JON MASON, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: One of which would be needing transport. The other one was unclear at the time when he called. We were expecting a young twenties female who had been attacked by a shark, had several injuries, including an amputated left foot, and some injuries to her left lower extremity, buttox and left hand.

She was in critical condition at that time, although she was alert and talking at the initial call I received.

Dr. Blair had established two intravenous lines. The blood pressure was quite low so we discussed the third intravenous line, which he did establish. Intravenous fluids to the tune of approximately four liters were administered and her pressure remained in the 80 to 90 range systolic, which is still low, but she survived the transport.

He had called Duramed flight before even calling me here at Sentara Norfolk General, and they were landing on the pad about the time that he called.

My first step was to notify our trauma chief resident Dr. Hess, and his team was gathered so they would be standing by upon arrival.

Duramed flight landed approximately 40 minutes later on our pad with a very quick offload of the patient. The patient maintained blood pressure of approximately 80 systolic in flight and was brought into our trauma bay.

At that time I initiated our highest alert status possible, which is called an alpha trauma alert, and our alpha team was established, and we're waiting for the patient to arrive. And in the operating -- in the trauma bay they began initial resuscitation.

There was no blood available at the outer banks, which is what I had requested, the possibility of giving blood, but there was none at the medical center there. But she was able to survive the transport with normal saline fluids infused. At that point Dr. Riblet took her to the operating room and he can continue the discussion.

DR. JEFFREY RIBLET, TRAUMA SURGEON: Good morning.

My name is Jeff Riblet. I happen to the be the trauma surgeon on call last night at Norfolk General Hospital when this young woman came in.

You've heard the report that we received from the pre-hospital providers and from our emergency room staff. The patient was -- this young woman, and she had had significant blood loss. Again was in -- was shocky, but resuscitated well in the both emergency department as well as the operating room.

We took her up to really get a good look at her wounds, which would include an amputated left foot at the ankle level, and a large tissue defect on left buttock and left hip, deep to her large muscles there, into -- to, but not into her pelvis, and to but not into her left hip joint. We washed these out as we resuscitated her. We gave her some blood. And at the end of the procedure, which lasted a little over an hour, we took her to the burn trauma unit, which is our trauma intensive care unit, here at Norfolk General. And she was in stabile condition when we took her up there and has been ever since.

It's important in these kind of patients that are in shock that you stop the bleeding as quickly as possible, and then resuscitate them with nice warm fluids and a warm place that they can warm up, because the blood and the fluids decrease their core body temperature.

She did very well during the procedure, as well as after. She's on a ventilator so she can't really talk to us. But she's awake when we lighten up her sedation, and has mouthed some words to her mother. So, that tells me that there a neurologic point of view, she's doing well.

I do worry a bit about her leg from a functional point of view, in that this large tissue injury is very close to and surrounds a large nerve in the back of her leg, which could lead to some functional difficulties down the road.

She has a long way to go. I think from a life threatening point of view she's certainly doing very well, and I expect her to get through this day as well as the rest of her hospital stay without any torrid complications that we don't know of now. But, she does have a long way to go as far as rehabilitation.

And it's a real team approach here, as with all trauma services, not just the surgeons. But both trauma, and plastic surgeon, anesthesia, the nursing staffs, the physical therapists, this is something we do every day. And we just use the same system on her as we do all our other trauma patients. She will have a long way to go with her rehab in the end. And it's really impossible to predict total final outcome with her at this point.

QUESTION: Might we ask a question of the doctors before we (OFF- MIKE)? Dr. Riblet, how long do you anticipate she could be her hospitalized, and possibly might we see her undergo more surgery?

HARRIS: Folks, we're going to interrupt this briefing.

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