Using a Toolbox to Save a Life

Doctors are sometimes faced with situations where they need to improvise in order to save a life.

Nicholas Rossi, a 12-year old boy from Maryborough in Australia was riding his bicycle with no helmet when he fell and was knocked unconscious. He seemed to quickly recover and went back home. There he started complaining about headaches to his mother, a trained nurse. She took him to the local hospital where Dr. Rob Carson was on duty. He kept Nicholas for observation and the boy soon began to drift in and out of consciousness. Dr Carson felt that the situation was serious and upon closer examination diagnosed internal bleeding in the skull, the same condition that claimed the life of actress Natasha Richardson after a skiing accident in March 2009.

The doctor knew that time was running out and he had one shot at saving Nicholas’ life. He called a leading neurosurgeon in Melbourne for advice. The latter confirmed his fears. He advised drilling a hole in the skull with a neurological drill to relieve pressure from internal bleeding that was putting a huge pressure on Nicholas’ brain, inexorably killing him. The problem was that the countryside hospital didn’t have any such drill and Dr Carson had never performed such an operation.

They was no time left to think it over so the doctor rushed to the maintenance room to grab a household drill. With the Melbourne surgeon on the phone to guide him through the procedure, Carson drilled a hole in the boy’s skull just below the bruise mark and soon enough a clot of blood emerged. He then inserted a drainage tube. That was enough to stabilize the boy’s condition who was soon airlifted to a Melbourne Hospital.

Nicholas is now doing well and has promised to always wear a helmet. Modest, Dr Carson insists he just did his job and praised the team who assisted him. Via sky news

Peter Black (Australia At Its Best)

He heard that his neighbors from Flowerdale, the Petkovskis, had lost all their belongings in the Victorian bushfires. He had just bought a new caravan, so he did what he thought was the right thing. He drove all the way from Shepparton to give it to the Petkovskis. Via abc.net.au