Heart Doctor

The bullet shattered humerus and blew out the brachial artery and nerves The ambulance siren was heard from far. "In coming" shouted one of the health team members in the crowd -control area. The barrier was lowered and the ambulance zoomed in. "Red Zone" the screening team member shouted after talking to the ambulance team. The door sprang open and six red zone team members lifted the patient from the ambulance onto the red zone bed. My camera was rolling. A young man had a hole on the right arm just below the shoulder on the humerus. The hole was oozing blood. The emergency team was extremely impressive. The team lead, a cardiothoracic registrar quickly clamped the brachial artery. She then applied a pressure bandage around the injury attempting to stop further bleeding. The second member put a wide-bore intravenous cannula on the opposite hand and started running intravenous fluids. A third member was taking history from the patient and the other person who came with the patient. A fourth gave a pain killer injection. "Move your fingers" the cardiothoracic doctor asked the gentleman. The fingers could not move. "Blood vessel and nerve injury" the doctor said. "Documentation" Dr @lizwala said, reminding the history takers to quickly jot down the medical notes for referral and get the identity of the patient and possible contacts. This is important information that was well illustrated in the KMA - IMLU training on forensic documentation. "Ready to move! Go" the team lead shouted after exactly 6 minutes from the time the patient was placed in the red zone for first aid. It was exactly like in the medical dramas on Netflix. The patient was lifted and placed back to ambulance, accompanied by the EMT. A quick hand over was done and with sirens back on the ambulance zoomed off enroute to Kenyatta National Hospital. I walked to the ambulance entry point and cried and cried. "It's ok" Christine Amondi from Red Cross said, seeing the distress I was in. A young man had an arm in the morning and by evening he was in a situation where he is likely to have his right upper limb amputated due to a bullet, a bullet that was well aimed to cause maximum damage. The bullet had gotten the right brachial artery that supplies blood to the whole upper limb. Sad. That was our day yesterday. I think we need counselling. The field hospital set up by @KenyaMedics_KMA & @BeyondTS_Africa along Kigali Road was both a life saver and a source of sadness. Many Kenyans came through to support the initiative by contributing to the KMA Paybill 645645, Account number Medical Aid. Thank You. No amount of contribution was small with Kenyans donating what they could afford. Many partners were on board @IMLU_org @MSF @StJohnKenya @KenyaRedCross , County Government of Nairobi & others. We thank all those who donated suppliers to Kenya Medical Association Headquaters. I want to signal out Dr Sylvia Vito for her very generous contributions of medicines and supplies. May God bless you immensely. The gun shot patient described above was one of the 579 patients treated, 88 needing critical care and 8 sustaining gun shot wounds. We had sexual assault patients and we also treated several policemen. The government needs to move with speed to sort out the issues that are leading to these ever increasing anti-government protests.