Ron’s Story: Trauma, Stroke Patient Recovers from Multiple Injuries

Mindi Wynne (wife): There's no way of knowing if you're going to get home and even find your spouse still alive when you get there. The way things were being described to us we really thought we weren't. Ron was leaving for work one morning and he was on his motorcycle and was hit by a car at the top of our driveway.

Mbaga Walusimbi, MD: Although I initially not appear to be severely injured, he had some signs that were concerning. As we usually do we go through out assessment, but during our evaluation his condition changed. We had to backtrack and get him on the ventilator to stabilize him so we continue his assessment.

Mindi Wynne: All I could do was look at him laying there with this temporary collar and this very mangled still mutilated leg. His tibia was shattered and his fibula, the little one, had punctured a hole in his fuel tank. He also was covered in gasoline so there was also a high risk for infection and his spleen was damaged so we had to keep him very sterile environment. He didn't look like Ron. His face was so swollen and he was so purple. It just looked surreal.

Peter Ekeh, MD: The ultimate and extreme level of that would mean that your spinal cord is severed totally. There was some displacement. The neurosurgeons who saw him at the time, Dr. Africk, was not certain if he would ever be able to use his hands or low extremities in the future and said that right from the start because of were uncertain about the degree of injury that could have occurred to the spinal cord. Obviously with all his other injuries hearing that it was a big problem.

Bradley Jacobs, MD: When someone has multiple medical problems it takes multiple experts to put their minds together to try to figure out what takes priority in the treatment and how to treat each of the injuries taking into regard the other injuries. For instance, one of the things with Ron was ideally after a stroke someone would be on a type of blood thinner. By given his other injuries that wasn't really able to be done at that time at least.

Mindi Wynne: The doctors were saying we'll have to wait and see. What you're seeing doesn't fit with waiting. Looking at a man that did not look like that when he dropped me off at the airport. I'm looking at a man that did not look like that the day before. We had plans, and we had goals, and we have life ahead of us. This was not the body of the person I was going to do that with.

Mindi Wynne: It was a fabulous day. It was one of the best days because I didn't think he was going to be home. We bought a cemetery plot. We made funeral arrangements. We had all kinds of what are we doing next plans.

Dr. Walusimbi: One of the reasons why choosing trauma was very easy for me because you could just see the difference that makes.

Mindi Wynne: Thank God for the doctors. What else do you say? I can't express my admiration for them nearly enough because the things that they did were inhuman. Nobody thought they could be done. The guy that fixed my neck, the guy that fixed my leg, the guy that sewed up my diaphragm that was split the wrong direction, who can manage all of those things? It's hard enough to manage one of those things, much less being able to save things like my spleen. All of those things, these guys did an admirable job by anyone's calculation.

Mindi Wynne: Miami Valley Hospital is 150% responsible for him still being here, the fact that we still go on a trip for our anniversary every year and we still have the same relationship we did. I think that's because they prepared us from day 1. They encouraged, they taught me, they let me participate in his care, and our relationship was never disrupted. Miami Valley really is responsible for us being the same couple today that we were before the accident.

You can't give up. When you know you're with your person and I can't function properly without him. I needed him to be okay.

Mindi Wynne: The doctors at Miami Valley have given me a life.

Mindi Wynne: 2 lives.