Mike’s Story: Coordinated Care Saves a Life

Mike's Fiancée:  When they send a uniformed person to your house and he’s on the occupation that he is, I thought – I thought that he had died.

Physician:  It was just a freak accident where he was helping as an EMT to guide one of the ambulances back against a building.  And his arm became trapped and impaled between the ambulance and the wall.

It was a severe crush injury.  And, in fact, it’s often referred to as a degloving injury where all of the skin was torn off the mid-portion of his arm and broke the bone and actually separated or transected the artery and vein from his arm.

He was at one of our regional hospitals, Atrium Medical Center.  They knew this was more of an injury than they could handle and the trauma team was immediately alerted to his – to his injuries.  And the thing about it, we were next in line.  I received a phone call within minutes of their becoming aware of his injury.  And so, by the time Michael is coming to the hospital, I’m already here.  We’re assembled.  We’re ready to go.  The operating room was alerted.  There is a room upstairs that’s designated strictly for these types of emergencies.  And so, everything was prepared and ready for Michael when he showed up.

Mike's Fiancée: The surgery was nine hours and initially I think it was just stopping the blood loss and assessing the damage.  And we had periodic updates and the first up was reestablishing blood flow with the degloving took his bicep and his brachial artery away.  And so they were trying to reestablish blood flow to his hand.

Physician:  And again, this was not just vascular surgery, orthopedic surgery was involved, was already in the emergency room.  And as we controlled the injury, Dr. Michael Johnson from plastic surgery and his team were notified about trying to get some form of coverage of all of the vessels that we had repaired since he had no skin.

Mike's Fiancée:  Everybody initially thought that we could save the arm.  They were surprised.  I think everybody was very surprised that after that, the very next day, he could move his fingers.  He could move his hand.  It was – it was all very impressive to the residents, to the doctors.  People would come and not even – on his case, I felt like, just to see this person – to see what he had been through and that here is this arm that is still attached and semi, you know, functional.

Physician:  We will take care of you here at Miami Valley Hospital and we do have the specialties to take care of any injury, whether it’s your brain, whether it’s your extremities, whether it’s an injury to an organ in your body, we have the right – we have the right surgeons and staff to care for you.

Mike's Fiancée:  I didn’t leave his room for three days.  I just thought they are just listening to what everybody was saying and then taking their recommendations because I understood that this was far greater of an injury than I had ever seen or dealt with.  And I didn’t really know what to expect.

Mike Diehl:  The very first thing I remember after the surgery was I woke up and I wasn’t completely awake but I woke up just enough to know that I was intubated and I tried to reach up and take the tube out.

Mike's Fiancée:  This is a favorite – my favorite part of the story.

Mike Diehl:  And they stopped me.  And I asked them through the tube, I was like, you have to take the tube out.  I can breathe just fine.

Mike's Fiancée:  And it was just – it was the best relief I had – I had ever felt.  Just thankful that, you know, he was talking to me.  He knew who I was and that – that he was okay because in the morning I didn’t think that I’d get to talk to him again.

Mike Diehl:  There were several times where I found myself in the position that I just – I couldn’t do the things that I wanted to do.  And there were a couple of times I had to call Dr. Johnson and discuss with him some of my limitations and where we were going to go from there.

Physician:  You know, the key – you know, at the time of the injury, if there is a way to maintain function and flow in that arm to give him a fighting chance and there’s no question in my mind Miami Valley Hospital gave that young man a fighting chance.

Mike Diehl:  In regard to the amputation, they gave me two options.  Option one was to fuse my elbow in a lock position for the rest of my life and I would have very little hand function for the rest of my life and be in constant pain or they could amputate and give me a prosthetic.  The first option gave me no future, no hope of ever using the arm again.  It would basically be a 20-pound hunk of meat just hanging from my shoulder that could do nothing except slow me down.  With modern technology and the steps and progress they’ve made in the field of prosthetics, I felt it was – it was a better option for me and my active lifestyle to amputate and go with the prosthetic.

Ultimately for me, I want to get back to living the lifestyle that I had before.  I was very into fitness.  I played semi-pro football.  I fought mixed martial arts.  I was a bouncer at a bar.

Mike's Fiancée:  Superman.

Mike Diehl:  I want to get back to being who I was and the first step in that goal is getting the prosthetics made.  They’re going to build one prosthetic for day-to-day use for normal things.  And then they’re actually going to fabricate and build me another arm specifically for weight lifting because that was such a big part of who I was.

Mike Diehl:  Well, besides for saving my life and doing everything they could to save my arm, they treated me like a human being.  They didn’t just treat me like a broken machine.  I had nurses that took the time out of their day to take me outside when I had been locked up basically in a prison for a month and a half.  And they took the time out of their day to just let me go outside and see some sunshine and get some fresh air.  And they took care of me like I was family.