Elvis' Surgery

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(Click Photos to Enlarge)

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Many of the supplies we use in the United States that are intended for single-patient-use and then disposed of were used over and over again in Kenya because supplies were so hard to get, or because they are so expensive to obtain. Some of our most basic supplies in the United States were not even available here, so the Tenwek medical staff had to find creative ways of accomplishing the same tasks.

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For instance, our surgical patients are kept warm during surgery by having warming blankets under them on the operating room table. In this OR, they had a heated fan sitting on a wooden stool several feet away from the patient pointed in the general direction of the patient. A much more in-efficient way of maintaining the patient's body temperature.

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The intravenous solutions were not in disposable bags, but were in re-usable glass bottles. With very few instruments on the nursing table and very few people in the room to deal with this profound injury, Elvis was prepped and draped for the operation as the surgeon prepared to make the incision.

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Since the arrow had gone through Elvis' trachea (wind-pipe) Dr. Russ had to perform a tracheotomy get control of the patient's air-way before he could remove the arrow. Because of the significant barbs on the arrow-head, the only way to remove the arrow was to push it out the back of Elvis' neck in the direction that the arrow was traveling when it penetrated his neck, or we would have risked perforating some or all of the major blood vessels in his neck.
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Approximately 2 hours from the time that I had entered Elvis' operating room the arrow was successfully removed (see picture on the left immediately after it was removed from his neck in the OR). It was one of the most intriguing procedures I think I have ever seen in my career; certainly the most unusual. The picture on the right shows the type of Kipsigi arrow that he was shot with.

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Elvis was transported to the ICU in relatively stable condition for the type of wound he had just suffered about 12 hours earlier. Still not much was known about him or the situation that led to his injury. All we could do now was wait and see how his recovery progressed.