Experienced Skydiver Survives Multiple Injuries Following Jump

Kelly McLean: He's my ex-husband. We actually met because of a good friend of mine, sky dives with him or used to sky dive with him, and that's how we met.

Well over 1000 jumps, probably closer to 1500. He jumps on a competitive team, he's done this for 30 years.

Dr. McCarthy: He was attempting a complicated maneuver where he tries to skim along the ground and the accident occurred when he struck the ground. He estimates going at approximately 100 miles an hour.

Kelly McLean: His feet were straight out, so you can imagine, and his left leg probably hit first, so his leg takes the impact, he broke his ankle, and his distal tibia on his left side. His right side then hit and he broke his tibia in two places.

Brad Hoops: You are looking at signs and symptoms, increased pulse rate, decreased pulses in extremities, hypotension, but that could be related to other injuries as well. What you know on scene is that that patient's really sick and that patient's really hurt, and you gotta move quickly.

Dr. McCarthy: The aorta is relatively mobile in the chest, and when the body stops suddenly, the aorta continues moving, and it has torn away from its attachments and that tears the lining of the aorta. Approximately 90% of these are fatal at the scene.

Dr. Falls: This is a life or death injury. I have to take him and do the surgery now.

Having a big thoracotomy and then aortic repair is a lot on anybody and doing this intravascularly, I think we saved him a lot of time and energy recuperating from that surgery that he could have devoted to his other injuries.

Dr. Timothy Peters: After vascular surgery had finished their procedure and neurology had finished their procedure, I was able to, the same day of his injury, wash out and clean the areas of bone that had come in contact with the outside environment. After we washed all those injuries out, ex fixed him, he really improved, over the next four, five days. Then I came back, I think post-trauma day five, and fixed his pelvis with plates and screws to restore the normal anatomy and also put an [intrameasuring] nail down his right tibia to help fix and stabilize the tibia, realizing that the opportunity for him to be able to get up and mobilize and walk would be better with a rod inside his tibia on the right side because of the complex injury that he had on his left side that was gonna be longer before he would walk on that left side and then turn him over to the expertise of my brother.

Dr. Paul Peters: The lower part of the bigger bone, the tibia, was shattered in a large number of pieces. The talus, the bone that sits right below your major leg bone was split into several pieces, as well. You first piece back together that talus and then work to reconstruct the ankle joint itself.

Dr. McCarthy: I think that the complexity of his lower extremity injuries was unusual. They weren't just broken in one place, they were shattered. He had multiple fragments and he had the orthopedic pelvic injury, as well, as well as some lower spine injuries. The combination of all these is extremely challenging for patients to recover from because it's basically everything below the waist.

Paul Rizzo: I was very blessed prior to the accident and I'm very blessed now. Now I truly appreciate how blessed I've been my whole life. I've been married to a beautiful woman. I've traveled the world. I've done more than most people have. I accepted that I thought that I was gonna die when I had the [run in].

Dr. Falls: Miami Valley Hospital, being a level one trauma center, is huge in Mr. Rizzo's recover. Without that level one status, he would not have had the resources available to him.

Paul Rizzo: Supreme confidence in everyone there. I didn't wanna go anywhere else. The vibe I had, you couldn't replace that.

Dr. McCarthy: A trauma center is the whole hospital. It is the care of the patient from the pre-hospital area with CareFlight all the way through rehabilitation. I thought of what we could do to provide the acute care for these patients, but to see that all working successfully every day for the care of every patient we have is beyond what I could have dreamed.

Dr. Paul Peters: Always your goal is to have a recovery like this. We have tools to provide that recovery. It's just validation of what we do.

Dr. Timothy Peters: I agree with Paul. I think the delivery of trauma care has evolved, that when people make it to the facility and you have an opportunity to be able to manage some of their injuries, the opportunity that patient has to be able to get back on with their life is much better than it has ever been.

Kelly McLean: He needed to go exactly where people knew what to do and people were available. The resources were there. Frankly, everyone along the way did...everything right.

Paul Rizzo: I'm doing great. I have zero back pain, zero hip pain. My legs are strong. I have some challenges with my left ankle. I should be walking without a walker within five weeks and I fully anticipate walking to the banquet. I'll be dancing at my birthday, New Year's Eve.