Pediatrics

Overview

Cole Heiden was riding on the fender of his parents' tractor when it broke off and the tires of both the large tractor and its trailer ran over him. Christopher Moir, M.D., Mayo Clinic pediatric surgeon at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota, explains that with Cole's midtorso crushed, Mayo Clinic vascular surgeons, led by Ian R. McPhail, M.D., repaired his major internal bleeding in a delicate four-hour surgery to preserve his life without putting him at high risk of fatality. This operation then allowed another team of Mayo Clinic surgeons to come in and address Cole's level V liver laceration, multiple rib fractures and pneumothorax.

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JULIE HEIDEN: The fender broke off the tractor. Before my husband knew what had happened, the big tire on the tractor ran over our son, and the wagon tire ran over him, too. We called our local 911, and we told them what had happened. And they thought being run over by a tractor, they got the air ambulance on route as soon as possible.

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CHRISTOPHER MOIR: For us on the trauma team, Cole's story started just before midnight. We got a call that there was a child who was severely injured out in the field, run over by a tractor and by the trailer behind. He was off to Eau Claire, and Eau Claire was calling, saying he needs to come see us.

He was crushed across the mid part of his torso so that he had multiple rib fractures, fractured from 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Some of those were comminuted. He had a pneumothorax in there, and his liver was crushed.

JULIE HEIDEN: When I heard-- when they said level five liver laceration, the doctor explained to us that level six, there is no saving. Level five, I thought to myself, you know, it's pretty bad. We didn't think he was going to make.

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CHRISTOPHER MOIR: So we're standing at Cole's future bedside at midnight, waiting for him. 15 minutes later, he rolls in the door. We'd heard all this. We'd heard all these pretty serious signs as he was coming through.

We did what we do. We did the primary and secondary survey, but we pressed the button right after that primary survey, probably within about 30 to 60 seconds. This young man is sick. He needs to go to the operating room.

And so 16 minutes after Cole hits the emergency room, he's back on his cart, heading to the operating room.

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If we could get this done without doing a major surgery, Cole would survive. So that was the tension there in the operating room. The tension was, can we do something that's minimally invasive, exactly spot on to what he needs to have doing, without putting him through a procedure that has a 60% to 70% mortality to it.

So there were a lot of people in there hoping and praying for Cole. To a credit to Dr. McPhail and his team, they persisted for the next four hours, making sure-- I mean, it wasn't just one point that was bleeding. It wasn't just two points were bleeding.

And, by the way, the artery that was bleeding was an anomalous artery. It didn't come off in the usual place. The amazing thing is through the night, during a time when we are naturally tired, he got care second to none. He came out of that extremely difficult time like a rock star.

JULIE HEIDEN: This is the best place to be, Mayo. And if you're going to survive, it's going to be here. And we're thankful that we live in such close proximity to Rochester and stuff. So it was a godsend for that. Went through a lot of trials, and we're thankful that he's with us.