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Alive and Well!
I wanted to share a personal experience I had in hopes that it will help anyone who might be having a similar experience gain some hope. I was in a car accident on December 9, 2004. The Texas State Police closed the road temporarily as state law requires because they thought I would die. Because of the injuries I suffered, they called Life Flight. Life Flight is a helicopter ambulance system used for cases that are severe. They are stationed on the top of Memorial Herman Hospital in Houston, Texas.
I sustained many injuries in my accident. 27 broken bones to include all the bones in both legs, all the bones in both arms, several ribs, 4 vertebras in my neck, crushed 1 ankle, 1 knee and one elbow. I also punctured a lung and the fire department needed to use the jaws of life to first open my truck, and second to remove the steering wheel from my head. The steering wheel had crushed my head and I sustained a category 7 brain injury. Memorial Herman had a neurologist on its staff that had developed a prototype procedure that involved putting my brain in hibernation. They wrapped my head in a cooling blanket and lowered my body temperature to 60 degrees and held it there for 24 hours.
Upon arriving via the helicopter at Memorial Herman Hospital, they found that I had lost a large amount of blood. Within hours of the accident, my blood count went down to 2.2, which is about 1/2 pint of blood. The first thought was to amputate my leg, that’s were the bleeding could not be stopped. Because Memorial Herman Hospital is one of the best medical facilities in the world, I had the best medical staff available to me. One of the doctors was able to save my leg and it was not amputated. But as far as my blood count was concerned, Memorial Herman’s medical staff was advising my wife that if I did not have a blood transfusion in 2 hours or less, I would die.
My wife and I are Jehovah’s Witnesses and because our faith and trust in Jehovah God and what he teaches us in his word the bible, taking a blood transfusion was not an option that we would consider. Actually, I was unconscious and would remain in a coma for 47 days, so my wife was the one who was under the pressure to make this decision. She honored my faith and belief by informing the medical staff that I would not take a blood transfusion.
One of the Elders in my congregation contacted the Hospital Liason Committee that Jehovah’s Witnesses have set up for needs such as this. A member of this committee came to the hospital immediately to talk with the hospital medical staff and explain to them my faith and alleviate my wife from the pressure of making this decision and give her much needed comfort. Memorial Herman acted in a very professional way at this point and after they had the information the brother shared with them, they focused on what they could do without a blood transfusion.
The wife of my PO contacted an associate of NoBlood.org. This associate contacted the hospital medical staff and supplied them with information that would help them to save my life without a blood transfusion. The end result was that my body took care of its needs naturally and built up my blood count with no transfusion. Yes this took time, but I was in a coma, so time was not an issue for me.
This was a very unusual situation, but the blood issue is not. Many people find themselves in a situation similar to this in regards to blood. However, I had one doctor make a statement to me after I woke from my coma, that in his opinion, the fact that I did not have a blood transfusion may have been a major contributing factor in my survival.
He explained to me that when a person has a blood transfusion he or she will need to take medications designed to prevent the body from rejecting the blood, much like an organ transplant patient would take. Blood is an organ so it made sense to me that the body would try to reject something that was not natural to it. The doctor explained that because my body did not need to fight off the foreign blood or the medicines that prevent the body from rejecting the blood, my body was able to focus on the injuries it was capable of resolving. Yes, I still needed to take medications that aided my body in replenishing what it needed, but that was so much easier and better for my situation.
Again, I am sharing this with you in hopes that if you find yourself in a similar situation, which I hope you never do, you will have hope. There are good medical resources out there and my situation testifies that with the best medical attention a very low blood count does not mean that you will die without a blood transfusion. So seek good help from qualified persons, and most importantly don’t give up hope.
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