Word: ev
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...already under anesthesia, was hustled to the operating theater, his arm was put in a tub of chipped ice. The doctors dared lose no time in this effort to cut down the tissues' need for oxygen and thus delay the onset of rigor mortis in the muscles. Ev Knowles's shoulder joint was intact. The break in the humerus (the only bone in the upper arm) was between two and three inches below the joint. Says M.G.H. Spokesman Dr. Robert Shaw: "It was as though the arm had been laid on a bar and whacked with a sledge...
...artery-vein system with a special saline solution combined with antibiotics, an anticoagulant and a radiopaque dye. X rays promptly showed that the arterial tree was open all the way to the fingertips. Relieved, Dr. Herrmann picked up the arm, carried it carefully to the operating table on which Ev Knowles had just been wheeled in, all draped except for his torn and bloody shoulder...
...agreed that the most urgent job was to restore the arm's circulation. Specialists in blood-vessel repair first made sure the blood would have a way to get out. With neat and delicate sutures, they stitched the arm's two main veins to their extensions in Ev's shoulder (see diagram). Next, they opened a way for the blood to get in by rejoining the major (brachial) artery. Says Dr. Shaw: "When we took off the clamps from the artery above the break, we rejoiced at the pinking up of the arm as the blood...
...part of such restoration surgery is to rejoin the nerves so that they will resume their task of controlling the muscles. Neurosurgeons usually prefer to wait for weeks or months after the original operation before they attempt the job. The M.G.H. surgeons identified the three main nerve bundles in Ev Knowles's shoulder and arm, drew them together, and rejoined each with a single dacron stitch-a holding operation so that the nerves will not shrink...
...Ev Knowles also had some injuries to his left hand. The surgeons encased the boy's trunk and right arm in a cast that held the arm in a bent position, as though to ward off a blow. Still anesthetized, the boy was wheeled to a second operating theater. There, surgeons straightened out his battered left hand and sewed up its skin wounds. Ev Knowles received four more pints of blood during the multiple operations, which lasted eight hours...