that's when he's mad.
Are you ready? I'm ready and you can just square up with me. Oh yeah. Okay
well doctor first of all, how's he doing? Uh Mr Boomer is doing well. He's
stable right now. He's currently in the ICU. But he's awake and talking and
recovering well so far. He's in good spirits. Yes. What's the biggest
challenge moving forward for him at this point? It's just making sure that
his wounds don't succumb to an infection. Um But otherwise his wounds
were actually
mostly muscle and subcutaneous tissue. There wasn't much, there wasn't any
organ damage or arterial damage or bone damage. So he got very very lucky.
Probably one of the luckiest patients I've seen in the last decade, honestly,
but he just has
stay in good spirits and continue to heal.
How much worse could it have been? It could have been much much worse.
He could have not made it out of the water. The injuries that he had were uh
easy for us to fix. But if they had been much deeper, if it's severed ***
major artery, he could have bled out in the water before I even get into shore.
So it could have been much much worse.
Is this like one of those things that we hear or an inch away from an artery
*** couple of inches away from *** major art function. This was ***
millimeters *** millimeter away from an artery actually in one of the open
wounds on his abdomen. You could see clearly one of the major arteries that
feed the leg on the right side and that was clearly exposed as if *** surgeon
had dissected it. So this laceration was literally millimeters away from
kill him.
How many bytes? It appears? I'm not *** shark bite expert. This is the first
one I've seen, but it appears as if it was one bite. Um And then there were
some lacerations on his left arm in hand, but the patient reported it was
just one bite and that's what it looks like examining him.
Did he give any, he's swimming? He's an avid swimmer. He's swam that mile for
years or that area for years. Did he give you any indication that he saw it
coming or he never saw. Never saw it. Never knew what was coming. He did not
say that he saw it coming at all. He just reacted to it once it happened,
but he had no evidence that it was coming for him. He didn't see it coming
at all.
And then doctor, I mean, police officer responds, the surfer responds *** nurse.
How key were those first responders in possibly saving his life? I mean, if
you have *** nurse unseen,
Yes, they were extremely helpful. They were actually the real heroes of the
situation without someone on the beach, ready to go out and bring him back in
and then people on the beach ready with tourniquets. He could have also lost
his life. Just just in that fact that there was no one available or if there
was no one able to bring him in, he could have died in the water. The
bystanders were crucial in saving his life.
Physical, what's ahead for him?
Months? Weeks of physical therapy. How soon could he walk out of here? Um yeah,
he'll definitely have probably months, weeks to months of physical therapy
just to give time for all the wounds to heal and the muscles to get strong
again. Um He will likely walk out of here. Um, but he might walk to ***
rehab unit to do some rehab first, we'll see how he does.
So it's like hell, he's going to nothing, nothing paralyzed. Not that we
can tell so far. He's moving all of his extremities. He can feel his feet, he
can wiggle his toes and he's he's doing well so far from that standpoint. You
guys were talking *** lot of stitches here. I didn't count the number of
stitches exactly, but probably *** few 100 at least it was two hours of
washing out and repairing the lacerations to his trunk, legs, and
arms.
Maybe the last question when he finally came through came out of whatever he
was on under,
able to speak coherently. What were some of the first words he said, I was
very unlucky and then I was very lucky. It was one of the first things he said
to me. Um
he was actually in *** very good mood considering what had happened the day
before this morning. He was talkative and and able to even talk about the
experience which surprised me. You know, something that traumatic, I would
sometimes expect people not want to talk about it right away. But he was,
he was feeling well and ready to talk actually
dr anything I said, I haven't asked
that you might may be significant to the story, to his recovery, to his.
Sure. I think the other thing that's important in this story is that you
know, having *** trauma center here in Monterey was crucial as well. If he had
to be flown up somewhere north more transit time could have led to more
bleeding and may have lost his life. So having *** trauma center here in
Monterey, it was also important um, to him surviving. I'm surprised he wasn't
air flight but that probably would have taken longer than just loading them up
in an ambulance. Yeah, sometimes it can dependent on the situation and the
weather and all that. But luckily, you know, we're *** short drive with ***
quick ambulance from the lovers point. I think that was, I think that was
probably the best thing for him.
I think we have an age of like 62. Yes, he's 62 and I mean I'm sure he's
surrounded by maybe, I don't know, friends, family or family. I saw with
him in the room this morning.
Did he mention anything about the fact that he's in this
help crawlers swim club and if they swim regularly except on Wednesdays.
But he told *** friend he couldn't resist because the weather was so nice.
I hadn't heard that. He hadn't told me about that yet. Unfortunately. I didn't
know that. He doesn't usually swim Wednesdays. Maybe no more swimming on
Wednesdays for him.
He did say he swims like once or twice. He does, he's *** regular swimmer for
the last decade.
That actually was important to the fact that he had *** good cardiac reserve.
He had his arresting *** low heart rate like an athlete and he was able to
tolerate *** larger amount of blood loss I think because he, you know, I
had *** lot of reserve in his cardiac function.
I mean, it's like, is it like, I mean, you know, if I was to see like ***
bunch of holes in his.
So it's *** it's *** he's got *** large use *** U. Shaped laceration that goes
across his lower abdomen, around his left thigh and then over the front of
his left and right thighs. If
*** giant jar crushed down around his pelvis,
his lower abdomen and upper legs.
Any idea how how big this shot could have been? Unfortunately, I'm not an
expert in in shark bite radius is. But to me it looks pretty big. I'm not sure
what kind of shark or how big the shark could have been. Unfortunately, fish
and wildlife today confirmed it was *** great wife
I guess. They took DNA from his wetsuit or something
and they sent it off to confirm this afternoon. It was *** great way. That's
what I heard. Yeah, that's incredible. We gave his wetsuit to the fish and
wildlife people when we cut it off from yesterday.