Todd’s Story: Triumphant Recovery from Traumatic Brain Injury
July 14, 2023
When Todd Hansen was rushed to the Emergency Center at Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center early in the morning of March 18, 2022, doctors told hi...
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Ripp’s story: Family credits Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital’s affiliated trauma team and TIRR Memorial Hermann for son’s recovery from a traumatic brain injury following a tractor accident.
May 19, 2023
On September 24, 2022, Chase and Kendall had a few friends over at their family farm in El Campo where they gathered around the fire pit, grilling fajitas. It was supposed to be a fun and relaxing afternoon on the farm. But then, in a matter of minutes, everything changed so quickly. Ripp had bee...
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Road to Recovery: After a Motorcycle Crash, Mathew Craft Overcame Challenges by Focusing on Finding Joy
May 17, 2023
As soon as the paramedics arrived, they called Memorial Hermann Life Flight®. The next thing he recalls is waking up in a surgical ICU bed at the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, one of the busiest Level I trauma centers in the nation.
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Teen Overcomes "a Constellation" of Traumatic Injuries
May 15, 2023
Emilia “Mia” Tschen wants you to know her story. The 20-year-old Lake Jackson, Texas resident survived a traumatic car crash and lives to tell about it. Not so much about the crash itself, which took place 45 minutes from her home on the evening of September 28, 2019, but about her healing journe...
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Direct-to-OR Protocol Instrumental in Saving Gunshot Victim’s Life
October 1, 2021
In 2018, the Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute implemented a new process which enables eligible patients to be taken straight from the Memorial Hermann Life Flight® helipad to the trauma OR, bypassing the hospital’s Emergency Center. This process, was instrumental in saving the life of a...
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Mother of Eight Survives Stroke Thanks to a Trauma System That Works
October 1, 2021
Marrissa was transported from Memorial Hermann Cypress Hospital via Life Flight® to Memorial Hermann-TMC, an approximate 12-minute flight, where Dr. Blackburn stood by to perform a minimally invasive procedure to remove the clot that caused Miller’s stroke.
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Quieting a Traumatic Cardiac Storm
January 31, 2019
The team rushed Oscar to the heart catheterization lab to clear the blockages in the stent. But scar tissue from the heart attack had begun to form on his heart and he developed life-threatening arrhythmias called a ventricular tachycardia storm, basically, a severe electrical storm in his hea...
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Gray’s Story: Flawless Teamwork Saves 3-Year-Old Trauma Patient’s Life
October 10, 2018
What began as a typical weekday evening for the Guice family of Atascocita, Texas, almost became one of unimaginable loss when 3-year-old Grayson “Gray” slipped in the bathroom onto a ceramic trash can and was impaled by a broken shard. An injury of this magnitude could easily have co...
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Life Flight Key to Young Father's Survival After Horrific Motorcycle Crash
November 21, 2017
Michael Cassidy was cruising home on his motorcycle after proudly passing a welding exam. That is when his life changed forever. Without warning, the back wheel of the motorcycle spun out, and Michael, 25, lost control. Incredibly, among the handful of people who had witnessed the accident were t...
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Steven Fisher Makes a Comeback
August 8, 2017
Six months after sustaining multiple traumatic injuries in a motor vehicle crash, 38-year-old Steven Fisher was walking again, thanks to the skill of the multidisciplinary team at the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center and the handiwork of his orthopedic traumatolo...
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Saving Maria Sonnen's Leg
August 8, 2017
Maria Sonnen and her daughter, Laura Sonnen, were hit from behind repeatedly by a man driving a Nissan Frontier pickup truck. The result was a severe injury to Maria's left leg and near complete loss of the skin from behind her right knee to her ankle putting her at risk for an above-the-knee amp...
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Brian Southwell: A Walking Miracle
August 8, 2017
After working his usual night shift on a Tuesday, and then the day shift the following Thursday, Brian Southwell was lying in bed in the wee hours of the morning unable to sleep. It was 4:30 a.m. when the 45-year-old left his home in Onalaska, Texas, to make the 14-mile drive to Livingston. Along...
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Anthony Vallone: Without Stopping
August 8, 2017
After a devastating automobile accident that nearly took his life, Anthony Vallone is back at work at Shell Trading with barely a limp, thanks to his strength of character, a supportive family and the orthopedic trauma team at the Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute. “I have nothing ...
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Dylan Pugh: In the Best Hands
August 8, 2017
Dylan Pugh remembers working that day, coming home and going out again to meet friends. On the drive home later that night, he swerved to avoid an oncoming car and his one-ton Chevy Silverado Duramax left the road, hit a ditch, went airborne and slammed into a tree. The crash occurred on Sept. 29...
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Chad Blackburn: On the Upswing
August 3, 2017
After a vehicle plowed into the back of his patrol car, rescuers used the Jaws of Life to pry apart the car and free Chad Blackburn, who was transported to a community hospital in south Houston, where surgeons removed his spleen, stabilized him and arranged for air ambulance transport to the Memo...
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Returning to the Water, One Millimeter at a Time
July 13, 2017
In June 2013, Matthew Craig – then 15 – and his family were at their house on Lake Livingston enjoying some quality time when tragedy struck. While tubing behind a jet ski, Craig suddenly crashed into a boat dock. Right before impact, he attempted to protect his head as best he could ...
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Lindsay Holstead: Back in the Saddle
June 30, 2017
Equestrian Lindsay Holstead was leading her warmblood to the pasture on an unseasonably cold day in April 2013, when he became rambunctious and began to buck. After he bumped her, she lost my balance and fell, and his hoof struck her in the right side of the forehead where it curves toward the te...
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Meticulous Surgery Saves a Young Trauma Patient’s Vision
April 3, 2017
On New Year’s Eve 2012 Brendan Diffley’s father, Shane Diffley, and his stepmother, Jennifer Diffley, drove the 12-year-old to nearby Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital after he shot himself in the eye with a pencil while fashioning a makeshift paper crossbow using online directions. He w...
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Three Years After the Accident, the Berry Siblings Return to Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital
September 15, 2014
In July 2011, three young siblings lost their parents in a tragic car accident on the way home from summer vacation. The Berry family was traveling back to Houston when their vehicle was struck head-on by an SUV. The two brothers, Peter and Aaron, sustained serious spinal cord injuries that paral...
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Jared Dunten: Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury
January 27, 2014
While on a camping trip in the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park, Jared Dunten dove into the Rio Grande with a bar of soap to clean himself up – and hit a sandbar. He woke up in an intensive care unit in Lubbock, Texas, paralyzed from the neck down and breathing with the help of a ventil...
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Don Mathews' Recovery From Brain Damage
August 6, 2013
Don Mathews' inspiring story begins on the night of his 21st birthday party in September 1998. A successful student at Sam Houston State University, Don was celebrating with some of his college friends at a lake house on Lake Livingston. Don and his date were on their way to their vehicle, comple...
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Rodney Janczak: 25 Years Later
April 12, 2013
Rodney Janczak took his first helicopter ride on July 3, 1987, when he was nine years old. Following an automobile accident in a suburban area of northwest Houston, he was flown by Memorial Hermann Life Flight to the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, formerly kno...
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Kara Beatty: Recovery from Neurotrauma
February 5, 2013
Kara Beatty was on her way to summer school at a community college when a truck ran a red light and T-boned her car. She lost consciousness, and emergency responders had to use the “jaws of life” to free her from the wreckage. She remained in a coma for three days in the Neurotrauma ICU, with a m...
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Logan Schaefer: Teenager Recovering From Traumatic Brain Injury
February 4, 2013
On July 12, 2010, 14-year-old Logan Schaefer had a wakeboarding accident that left him unconscious, unresponsive and seizing following a traumatic brain injury. After an emergency craniotomy to relieve pressure on the brain caused by a subdural hematoma, the following day Logan awakened just long...
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McKenzy Winne: Traumatic Brain Injury
January 10, 2013
On September 15, 2007, McKenzy Winne was riding with two friends on the tailgate of a pickup truck. Suddenly and without warning, McKenzy was thrown from the tailgate. She tried to stand up, then collapsed in the street. After being flown to the Red Duke Trauma Institute at Memorial Hermann-Texas...
