Man survives chainsaw stuck in neck
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- A tree service worker was using a chainsaw on his job
- The saw "kicked back," and the blade tore into the man's neck and shoulder
- He arrived at a hospital with the blade still in, thanks to quick work by coworkers
- The blade was removed without major blood loss, and the man is in stable condition
Thanks to quick but
cautious work by his colleagues and medical responders, 30 stitches and
an hour of surgery, a day after the accident Valentine was recovering in
stable condition at a Pennsylvania hospital.
"He looks more like
himself, he's walking and talking today," Valentine's sister, Becca,
told CNN on Tuesday. "We can't believe it at all."
Pennsylvania man James Valentine, 21, cut it close after a
chainsaw blade entered his neck missing a vital artery by a mere
centimeter, according to a doctor Tuesday.
Valentine was on his job with Adler Tree Service in Gibsonia, north of Pittsburgh, and was performing maintenance work on a pine tree when the chainsaw "kicked back," Becca Valentine said.
The blade sawed into
flesh instead of wood. Valentine's co-workers were able to detach the
blade from its motor, but they left the blade and chain where it was --
in Valentine, about a quarter of an inch from the carotid artery that supplies blood to the head -- and they held the blade in place until emergency responders arrived.
On the ambulance ride to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Valentine was awake and alert, according to hospital spokeswoman Jennifer Davis.
The hospital's director
of trauma, Dr. Christine Toevs, said the trauma unit had 10 minutes to
prepare -- to get ready for a man coming up with a chainsaw blade in his
neck.
"We prepare for the worst. The unit expects the injuries to be catastrophic," she said of trauma work in general.
Toevs said this kind of injury could usually cause major damage or sever the spinal cord,
esophagus, or the airway. Instead, Valentine sustained most of his
injuries to muscles and soft tissue around the shoulder, rather than his
neck.
After Valentine was
stabilized and anesthetized, doctors removed the blade. There was no
major blood loss; the blade had missed that vital carotid artery by a
mere centimeter, Toevs said.
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