Trauma patient’s journey highlights care from emergency to recovery
(Ad) “The last thing I can remember is seeing the lady’s license plate way too close to where I was. It was the clearest I had ever seen a license plate. I knew I was in trouble at that point.”
The next thing Chris Rivera remembers is waking up in a hospital room nine days later.
“The first thing I saw was my mom. I knew I was in a hospital room, but I didn’t know what happened to me,” he said.
What happened was a motorcycle accident. Riding down Route 8 in August 2022, a car collided with Rivera, who landed hard and suffered injuries to his head, pelvis, arms, and bladder. He hadn’t been wearing a helmet.
“When he came in, I thought that he was going to have a non-survivable head injury, given how it looked,” said acute trauma surgeon Dr. Shawna Kettyle.
Kettyle has been with St. Vincent’s Medical Center as a trauma and emergency general surgeon for more than five years. The job can be taxing and hectic, but it’s a life she’s built for. The decisions she makes in the moments after a patient comes in can be the difference between life and death.
“When I close my eyes, I can see it and feel the internal tightness of the question: ‘What can I do to save this man’s life when his heart stops?’” Kettyle said. “Have I properly identified what his injuries are? What can we do right now? It ends up being a fine balance between being decisive and fast-acting but not reckless.”
When Rivera entered the emergency room, the trauma team at St. Vincent’s was ready for him, and they knew they had to act fast. He was losing blood, and they had to determine where. He flatlined shortly after arriving, but they were able to restart his heart without doing a thoracotomy. After a major blood transfusion, they managed to stabilize him enough to explore his injuries further.
“Once stabilized, we had the urology team come in for the injury to the bladder. He went straight from the emergency room to the operating room for that,” Kettyle said.
Rivera’s head injury ended up being minor, with no swelling on the brain and no bleeding. The true problems laid within his pelvis, which had shattered in the crash.
“We placed an external fixator on his pelvis; it’s a metal cage that holds the bones in place so they don’t shift,” Kettyle said. “Just the act of going to the bathroom can lead to the bones moving and can retraumatize the tissue. This cage screws into the bones and stabilizes them while the patient is being resuscitated and stabilized until they can undergo surgery.”
That was just the beginning of Rivera’s long journey back to health.
“I was covered in road rash: my face, my stomach, my legs. I was in excruciating pain. It would take like six people to turn me to check my wounds. Dr. Kettyle came every day in the morning to check, too,” Rivera said. “I was in so much pain that the slightest movement would bother me. I just had to lay
on my back for months until I could start getting surgery and recovering.”
Kettyle remained with Rivera throughout his hospital stay, and also saw him occasionally during rehabilitation. From eating his first solid foods to taking his first steps, the staff at St. Vincent’s supported Rivera and helped him heal.
“At first I couldn’t eat at all, then they put me on a broth diet. The first time they tried to give me food, it had been so long that I threw it up,” he said. “The first thing I was able to eat was ice and Warheads; that’s going to stick with me for the rest of my life.”
Even though the hours are long and the work is intense, Kettyle says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think our ability to see someone on potentially the worst day of their life and take care of them, and get them back to some existence
that is meaningful to them, is a privilege,” she said.
Rivera felt the dedication from the staff at all levels.
“The care I got there was top tier,” he said. “The pain management doctor would talk to me every day, Dr. Kettyle and her team would come and check my injuries. They had a psychiatrist come to the room and ask me how I was doing. All the staff were so nice all the time, even though I know I can be a pain in the rear.
“They had a nice lady with a dog come in one day. And after months I really wanted some fresh air, so they wheeled me out,” he continued. “I really appreciated that because being inside for so long just looking at the ceiling can
make you go a little crazy. Any time I have any issues I go back to St. Vincent’s even though I live in Naugatuck. I’d rather go there every time.”
Kettyle says it’s the people at St. Vincent’s that make the difference.
“Everyone treats the hospital like our home, and we treat the patients like our families,” she said. “Everyone does the job to the level they would want if it were their loved ones, and that is not something you see everywhere. That is unique.”
These days you can find Rivera back at his job teaching people how to drive forklifts, out running, or at the gym. After more than a year, he’s slowly
getting back to 100 percent. And yes, he says he will ride again.
“I’m going to get back on a motorcycle someday. This is not going to stop me from riding. I just love it,” he said.
This is just one example of Hartford HealthCare St. Vincent’s Medical Center bringing more specialists and providers to the community. Tune into Hartford HealthCare St. Vincent’s Medical Center’s Facebook Live discussion, where you can ask your questions, on Tuesday, Dec. 21, at noon. For more information, start here: hartfordhealthcare. org.
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