MODERN MEDICINE WORKS A MIRACLE

THE man tasked with saving David Conway’s life credits his “extraordinary” recovery to advancements in the way medical professionals coordinate treatments.

“It sounds so simple but to make that happen it takes a lot of work together and coordinations,” said Gold Coast University Hospital trauma services director Dr Martin Wullschleger. “There’s been a lot of notification and preparation going on compared to five years ago.”

Dr Wullschleger said Mr Conway’s injuries were the most critical he had seen in 20 years and if it happened just five years ago the Gold Coast father would have almost certainly died.

“To be honest, if it was half an hour further away he probably wouldn’t have made it, and four or five years ago he would have died, 100 per cent, probably even three years ago,” Dr Wullschleger said.

Mr Conway spent two months in intensive care where staff worked tirelessly to keep on top of serious complications that arose on top of heart, lungs, pelvis and feet injuries. He woke up without his lower legs, from just below the knee down.

“With trauma heart injures very rarely (do they) make it to the hospital,” Dr Wullschleger said. “He shouldn’t have survived. He had a lot of new external complications and problems in intensive care, where he spent more than 100 days.

“David had gut and pancreatic failure so on top of being extremely severely injured he had very severe complications which we couldn’t avoid – but he just kept going so that’s really the extraordinary thing.”

Dr Wullschleger said Mr Conway all but wasted away in the early stages of his recovery.

“He was just skin and bone in certain stages, and I don’t exaggerate, he couldn’t lift anything any more,” he said.

“But then we could feed him better and he started to gain weight, become conscious and he could start moving again.”

After months of physio and then occupational therapy, Mr Conway hoped to one day use prosthetic legs.