Via nytimes.com
BOSTON — So many patients arrived at once, with variations of the same gruesome leg injuries. Shattered bones, shredded tissue, nails burrowed deep beneath the flesh. The decision had to be made, over and over, with little time to deliberate. Should this leg be amputated? What about this one?
Trauma surgeons faced life-changing decisions as runners and spectators arrived with gruesome leg trauma, the result of bombs that seemed to deliver their most vicious blows within two feet of the ground.
“As an orthopedic surgeon, we see patients like this, with mangled extremities, but we don’t see 16 of them at the same time, and we don’t see patients from blast injuries,” Dr. Peter Burke, the trauma surgery chief at Boston Medical Center, said.
The toll from the bombs Monday at the Boston Marathon, which killed at least three and injured more than 170, will long be felt by anyone involved with the city’s iconic sporting event.
Below is a video of Monday’s tragic events, WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT!
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