Jessica’s Heart
May 5, 2004, Jessica Clements was all but declared dead. She was in a military convoy just outside of Baghdad that hit a roadside bomb while on the way to the Baghdad airport. She was the only one in the truck that was injured, and those injuries were devastating. Shrapnel hit her hip, bottom and worst of all, her head leaving pieces embedded too deeply to be removed safely.Comatose when she arrived at the 31st Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, doctors were not optimistic for her survival. The best prognosis at that time was that she would persist in a vegatative state. Army neurosurgeon Lt. Col. Jeff Poffenbarger removed part of her skull so he he could opertate to stop the bleeding in her brain. Due to the risk of brain swelling, the skull pieces could not be replaced. So the doctor created a pocket in her abdomen and put the skull piece there, to preserve it.
Jessica was flown to Landstuhl, Germany where she was further stabilized for the long trip to the United States and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. She remained comatose throughout the journey. It was feared that she would not survive the trip.
Jessica had arrived at Walter Reed on May 15, still in a coma. Little, it seemed, had changed since Baghdad. There was no sign that she could see or hear or respond to anyone or anything.
The doctors asked [her mother, Amy] Wyatt to bring in her daughter's living will. "The worst thing I ever did in my life," she said later. "It felt like I was giving permission to just let her die."
Standing in the doorway of the hospital room, Wyatt didn't recognize her daughter. All she saw was a maze of tubes and bandages and swelling.
She and the others took turns staying by Jessica's side 24 hours a day, holding her hand. Her mother remembered hearing somewhere to keep talking to someone in a coma.
"Jess," she would say, "if you can hear us, can you please squeeze our hands?"
Several days after she arrived, Wyatt was holding her daughter's limp right hand.
She felt something rub across her palm.
It was Jessica's thumb.
Read the rest of Jessica's miracle ...
Back from Iraq one step at a time
Back from Iraq: Hoping to be Whole Again
Slide show with audio
H/T: Powerline Blog
Cross-posted at Global Affairs Forum
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Posted by nic on 09/01 at 02:28 AM