The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Seen
My patient was a girl who was taking a nap at home. As she slept, a reckless driver crashed into her house, causing an electrical fire and setting the entire house ablaze. When firefighters pulled her out, her body was 95% burns. The only intact skin on her body was a small area around her inner thigh.
At the end of the day, she looked like a mummy fully wrapped. There is no chance of her having a normal life ever again. The only thing you can really do to encourage healing at that point is antibiotics and debridement. This removes dead cells which hamper growth and encourages new skin formation.
One day, I said out loud in the OR, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” She survived the next few days, and we started with the skin grafts. Her average surgery time was about 10 hours per procedure. This meant 10 hours in full scrub gear at nearly 100-degree heat. Allopathological