Motorcycle Mayhem Continues

Today I once again spent a Wednesday afternoon trying to piece together the face and jaw bones of a motorcycle victim. Today’s patient is a 60 year old gentleman who was hit by a passing motorcycle. He had multiple fractures of his facial bones as well as two jaw fractures. In addition he had brain fluid leaking out of his ear for the first few days after the injury. Fortunately the leak stopped on its own, as it usually does. In the operating room, I managed to piece his upper jaw together, wire his upper and lower jaws closed, and put a titanium plate over the fracture line in his lower jaw. I used the manual hand crank drill that we dusted off and tried for the first time. Overall, it was a long afternoon as we sweated away in the muggy operating room.


The man in the photo is a 48 year old man who was riding his own motorcycle and had an accident. He fractured his left ankle in addition to also having brain fluid leaking out of his right ear. Again, his leak stopped spontaneously. He was in our clinic this morning for a follow up visit. He initially hobbled in with the help of his family members. I asked him, “Where are your crutches?” He had purposely left them in the car, for some undisclosed reason. A family member brought them so he could leave my office on his own accord. The crutches were brand new; he just got them from the carpenter yesterday. You may notice that they are wooden and not exactly the same size. He paid 1,400 Naira for them, which is almost $10 at the current exchange rate. The aluminum crutches are much more expensive to purchase.


Michael Mitchell, MD