Perilous Times
Doctor freezes man's skull, saves his life
* By Karlie Pouliot, FOXNews.com
* From: NewsCore
* August 18, 2010 5:42AM
A UTAH Utah man had a 90 to 95 pe rcent chance of dying after
shattering his skull in more than 10 places until a neurosurgeon
removed both sides of his head and froze it.
Kyle Johnson’s brain swelled uncontrollably after an accident on a
longboard - essentially a surfboard on wheels - two months ago,
FOXNews.com reported today.
Dr Blake Welling, of McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah, outside Salt
Lake City, decided to perform the risky surgery.
“It’s something that neurosurgeons do as a last ditch effort,” he said.
Dr Welling and his team removed the 25-year-old's fractured skull, put
it back together with micro-screws and plates, and then, they put it in
the freezer.
Mr Johnson was placed in a drug-induced coma for about three weeks
while doctors monitored his brain swelling. After the swelling went
down, Dr Welling put the bone flaps back into place, and it took Mr
Johnson about another week to wake up after that.
“I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to be left with,” Dr Welling
said. “When people have injuries like this I thought he may have a
significant disability in terms of having to talk and walk again and
learning his cognitive function. But low and behold, Kyle woke up and
his lights gradually went back on.”
Although Mr Johnson did not require any real physical therapy, he is
currently undergoing cognitive therapy to help with memory loss and
things like multi-tasking.
“It’s something that I do not have the ability to do right now,” he
said. “If you put two colour crayons in front of me, say blue and
green, I really cannot think of both crayons. I can only think of one
at a time and even that is a struggle. So, for therapy, we’ve been
doing more mind exercises if you will.”
Now, almost 10 weeks after the accident, Kyle is looking forward to the
future, but he is not sure if he will ever get back on his longboard.
"It's kind of an eerie type of feeling - so I don't know if I will ever
get back to longboarding - but snowboarding for sure."
Read more at FOXNews.com.