Hand grenade injury

Sunday night at 9pm I received a call to say that an 18 year-old cattle herder had picked up a hand grenade (from Idid Amin days) which exploded. As well as loosing his hand, his legs were severely damaged, and he was unconscious when I reached him.

This was just the scenario I have been dreading since I came here. I have been in several war zones but have operated on few cases of bombs and bullets. However amazingly a plastics surgeon and his experienced trainee had just arrived for a 4-day ‘surgical camp’. Andrew Hodges was surgeon here in the civil war years, and had experience of over 60 landmine casualties! Who better in the world to cope with this situation? I thanked God so much.

We removed both legs rapidly, and tried to restore his blood pressure, but sadly he did not survive till morning. At a ‘post mortem’ meeting last night we recommended several important changes in our system for trauma, and also some staff training in the famed ‘Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course.

Photos not recommended for public viewing.