A London doctor told today how a British surgical team in the typhoon-hit Philippines reconstructed the wrist of a man who smashed through a window to rescue his two drowning brothers.
Consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon Steve Mannion also said amputations have had to be carried out on survivors of Typhoon Haiyan whose injuries were gangrenous after going untreated in the chaos.
Mr Mannion, who is head of the Department of Conflict & Disaster Medicine at St George’s Hospital Medical School in Tooting, flew to the Philippines nearly two weeks ago, as part of a 12-strong UK medical team.
Seven of the team are at an Australian field hospital in Tacloban City, sleeping in tents, while the other five are with HMS Daring which is delivering aid to remote communities in the islands.
Mr Mannion said the most challenging surgery so far was on the wrist of a carpenter in his fifties who had broken through a window at his home to drag his two brothers to safety from the water surge. Nerves and tendons were reconstructed in the two-hour operation. “Without that, this man would have had a useless hand for the rest of his life,” said father-of-three Mr Mannion, 49, who leads the team in Tacloban.
The hospital had carried out 65 operations on people with injuries caused by flying debris, including a child with a depressed skull and a piece of wood embedded in his brain.
Mr Mannion, who was also part of the rescue mission after the tsunami which hit Indonesia in 2004, said: “The scale of the devastation here is truly incredible. Whole villages have been flattened.” He expects to remain in the Philippines for about another week.
