Calling doctors: brain damage/coma after a car accident?

aruna said:

Thanks MDSchaffer, and I checked out the website but it seems to be more about the general effects etc -- I really need to know what the doctor would do practically and specifically after this horrific accident. Just a sentence or two would be enough!

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Honestly, in the 1960's your victim would more than likely die, even if an American neurosurgeon was on scene. Neurosurgery was still in the early stages, it didn't really come about as specialty until 1910's or so. The first Neuro ICU was in 1960.

I don't know how realistic your scenario is. I do know in 1973 a surfer suffered a brain injury in Brazil and it took him five years to get back to the United States. So, the idea that a doctor could stabilize and ship the person to the US in a short time doesn't really seem plausible to me, but I have medical training in this area, and most people don't.

It's hard to know without some specifics about where your iron bar is located, and I don't have any knowledge about 1960's medicine. Generally speaking you would stabilize the patient and deal with the brain injury second. I'm assuming the injury is fairly high up, because if it's in the brain stem he's dead.

I would think a craniectomy to relieve swelling would come in pretty short order, but you'd really have to find a expert in '60's era medicine. Maybe go to a retirement home? Because there aren't a lot of surgeons from that era still around. I do know they still used iron lungs in the 1960's, so it would be incredibly difficult to transport someone.

Questions that would probably help you get some more detail. Is the guy alert and oriented? Can he breath without assistance? Where did the object penetrate and how far in did it go? What's his level of consciousness?

I've seen guys with rebar sticking out of their heads who are pretty much with it, and similarly people who are completely catatonic and on a vent from a cranial penetration.

I can't help with the specifics, but my mum was a nurse in the 60s and 70s (in the UK and South Africa). I remember her mentioning that they were always told to leave any instrument of impalement (sounds dramatic!) in situ when the patient was being transferred to hospital, in case it was plugging a major artery and stopping the patient from bleeding to death.

I've read about cases where people have had to be taken to hospital with part the the metal railings they'd impaled themselves on (after the Fire Brigade had brought their cutting gear), so the railings could be carefully removed and the damage repaired during surgery.

Not an experience I'm in a hurry to experience from any perspective!