Trauma

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.