Preston’s Story: Life-Saving Care After a Gunshot Wound

Karen Alexander (mother): First thing he said was, "he was alive."

Kelly Winship, RN: Preston was shot in the abdomen, chest, and had multiple life threatening injuries. He had a pancreatic injury, a heart laceration, he had a colon injury.

Karen Alexander: It looked really bad, I didn't think Preston was going to make it. I really didn't. It looked so bad that he was just hanging on by a thread.

John Bini, MD: After being there just a couple of minutes, he started to lose consciousness, at that time we decided to intubate him, or put a breathing tube in him, establish IV access, and with his wounds with the plan of taking him up to the operating room. He immediately, after he was intubated, he lost all vital signs, he didn't have a blood pressure, didn't have a pulse, so he effectively died. And at that point in time, the decision was made by me to open his chest, so I did a procedure called a resuscitative thoracotomy, made an incision, opened his chest in the emergency department, was able to get in there and put a clamp across his aorta. The timing of decisions and the ability to have the things you need, as you may or may not change course, is really what contributes to that patient's survival

Karen Alexander: My entire family was there. My sisters, my brothers, they came from everywhere. My sister said, "I got a feeling he's going to come out of this. I've got this feeling he's going to come out of this." I mean she really had that feeling, and so we waited and waited, and then an hour later, doctor says, "He turned around, he's not in danger anymore."

Kelly Winship: Well we spend a lot of time with the family, educating them on what's going on and even being a shoulder to cry on, I mean his mom was having a really hard time at the bedside. She was alone most the time. We just spend a lot of time talking to them, and for Preston, just spend a lot of time reassuring him, he was awake, he would open his eyes and even during, when he was really sick, at the beginning when he was so sick, he looked really scared.

Karen Alexander: There were times I thought they were trying to heal me, there were times I had my little moments, where I would break down or I couldn't stand to be in the room, or I'd leave, or I'd talk to a nurse or I talk to maybe somebody that, I talked to a pastor here. I did, I had my moments where I had to go sit down and talk to somebody.

John Bini, MD: Because the pancreatic head and the duodenum were effectively devastated by this gunshot wound, the decision was made to precede with a pancreaticoduodenectomy, otherwise known as a Whipple procedure, which is extremely complicated.

James Ouellette, DO: Technically we use that mostly with removing tumors from the duodenum or the pancreas. You have to remove the duodenum, the head of the pancreas, the end part of the bile duct, and then maybe the end of the stomach some times. We do that to take out a tumor usually and once that's been removed, then we use sutures to reconnect all those things we've disconnected, and of course we disconnect them on purpose when there's a tumor. This was not so much on purpose.

Karen Alexander: I just feel like I met so many good people here. Took real good care of me, and Dr. ... could have been like any other doctor and just say, "He's gone, there's no point in bringing him back." He just took the chance. I'm able to tell my story.

John Bini, MD: When you take care of these patients, and you put everything into it, they become part of you. How can you give up on yourself? You become one in the same in may ways. The relationship with that patient is special. The question maybe shouldn't be, "How do you stay with it, or how do you persist?" It should be, "How does anyone not?"

Kelly Winship: It's very rewarding to see someone after they leave the intensive care knowing that they're doing well and knowing that we made that happen. There were many times, I can't count how many, that we didn't think he would survive, and that Dr. Bini had to talk to his mom about not possibly surviving, and he was a fighter, so he's doing well.

John Bini, MD: He had a positive attitude, he smiled, he was appreciative, he was happy that he was alive, he really got the fact that he died and this was truly a second chance, and to this day, he has something about him when I talk to him, it lights you up. He's a special man, and I really hope that some day, and believe that through these experiences, he's going to go on to help others, or do something that's good. That's going to come out of this difficult time that he's gone through. For now over a year and a half.

Preston Alexander: These tears are tears of joy because the team here saved my life. I feel like God gave me a second chance to just become a better person, just another chance at life, just get to be here with my son. Get to see him, see his birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving. Yes, these are tears of joy.

Karen Alexander: It's a great feeling knowing I'm not going to a cemetery looking at my son's grave, because some mothers didn't get that second chance like I did. And I'm grateful for that. I really am.