My heart broke this week when two burned children died from an accidental gun powder explosion. An adult had the gunpowder while eight boys watched and after it exploded they all came with extensive burns. One twelve year-old asked me for a drink of water in the morning and when I finished surgery at 5 PM and checked on him, his bed was empty and I was told he had died at 3 PM. A three year-old died when an endotracheal tube could not be passed into his lungs through his burned, edematous, obstructing larynx. It is terrible for children to die from such a preventable accident and from lack of a burn unit with proper personnel and equipment. The adult and another eleven year-old are in serious condition.
This week the lives were saved of a five year-old with a coin lodged in his esophagus, two septic patients with deep neck abscesses from tooth infections, and a septic patient who removed the bone caught in his mouth with a non-sterile knife. On Friday, a large, painful cystic forehead lesion was drained through the nose.
These poor burned children do not even cry.
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