Doctors Reattach Teen's Hand After Wreck
Girl Has Potential To Regain Mobility

POSTED: 1:28 pm CDT April 12, 2006
UPDATED: 1:37 pm CDT April 12, 2006

Email This Story | Print This Story

DALLAS -- A teenager whose hand was crushed under a sliding SUV that wrecked en route to an immigration rally should regain some use of her hand, doctors said.

Yadira Ortiz was injured two weeks ago when she was traveling with friends to a Dallas rally made up mostly of high school students. An unlicensed 15-year-old was at the wheel when the Ford Expedition flipped over.

Ortiz's right hand "was very, very severely crushed, with dislocations and fractures to multiple joints," said Dr. David J. Zehr, the orthopedic hand surgeon at Baylor University Medical Center who reattached the hand.

Nevertheless, after three operations and with months of intensive therapy ahead, the 18-year-old has the potential to regain limited mobility, Zehr said.


Ortiz and her family declined to talk about the surgery or her recovery but gave permission for Zehr to discuss it publicly.

Zehr said Ortiz's hand was almost completely severed at the wrist. Each of her hand joints were either fractured or dislocated. Her fingers were dislocated and two were fractured. She also had five or six fractures to her wrist and hand, he said.

The treatment began with the medical team carefully cleaning the wound, searching for every particle of dirt, glass, grass or paint. Saline solution was pumped over the damaged tissue and around the bones to avert infection.

"When you see so many things wrong, you need to know where to start," Zehr said. "It's a puzzle and you're trying to decide how to put it together."

During the first operation, doctors rebuilt the hand using fine wire to tie the bits of bone together, Zehr said.

The second operation secured the function of the blood supply. During the third operation, doctors patched the exposed blood vessels and bone with skin and fatty tissue from Ortiz's arm.

Zehr said it could take two to three months for Ortiz's bones and tendons to heal. Then she will begin three months of physical therapy that are critical to her acquiring mobility in her hand, he said.

"There will definitely be a level of use," Zehr said. "Complex use, of course, isn't what we're expecting. But if we hadn't done this, she'd have no hand."

Dallas school district officials said Ortiz was recovering at home and had not returned to school, where she's in her senior year.

Estella Vasquez, the mother of one of Ortiz's friends, said she's amazed that doctors were able to reattach the hand.

"We went to the hospital to see her, we talked with her on the phone, and Yadira told, 'I think I'll be OK'," Vasquez said.

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/8646334/detail.html

I wonder if we paid for this too?