Latest news with #StraubBenioff
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Last Aliamanu fireworks burn patient discharged from Straub
COURTESY STRAUB BENIOFF Charmaine Benigno, a mother of two in her 20s, suffered from the most complex, severe burns, according to Straub Benioff, but made an amazing recovery. She gets an emotional sendoff from Straub Benioff's Burn Care Unit staff. 1 /2 COURTESY STRAUB BENIOFF Charmaine Benigno, a mother of two in her 20s, suffered from the most complex, severe burns, according to Straub Benioff, but made an amazing recovery. She gets an emotional sendoff from Straub Benioff's Burn Care Unit staff. COURTESY STRAUB BENIOFF Charmaine Benigno, a mother of two in her 20s, suffered from the most complex, severe burns, according to Straub Benioff, but made an amazing recovery. She gets an emotional sendoff from Straub Benioff's Burn Care Unit staff. 2 /2 COURTESY STRAUB BENIOFF Charmaine Benigno, a mother of two in her 20s, suffered from the most complex, severe burns, according to Straub Benioff, but made an amazing recovery. She gets an emotional sendoff from Straub Benioff's Burn Care Unit staff. COURTESY STRAUB BENIOFF Charmaine Benigno, a mother of two in her 20s, suffered from the most complex, severe burns, according to Straub Benioff, but made an amazing recovery. She gets an emotional sendoff from Straub Benioff's Burn Care Unit staff. COURTESY STRAUB BENIOFF Charmaine Benigno, a mother of two in her 20s, suffered from the most complex, severe burns, according to Straub Benioff, but made an amazing recovery. She gets an emotional sendoff from Straub Benioff's Burn Care Unit staff. The Straub Benioff Medical Center today announced the discharge of the last burn patient from the Aliamanu fireworks explosion on New Year's Day. Charmaine Benigno, a mother of two in her 20s, suffered from the most complex, severe burns, according to Straub Benioff, but made an amazing recovery. She suffered burns to more than 80 % of her body. Out of more than 20 patients from the explosion, she was the last burn patient still in the care of Straub Benioff's Burn Care Unit operated by Hawaii Pacific Health, more than four months later. The medical center chaplain blessed Benigno and her family before the emotional sendoff, in which dozens of staff stood in a line, holding paper hearts with personal messages of good wishes for her healing journey. They were from the Burn Care Unit, ICU, operating room and physical therapy team, who all worked with Benigno on her road to recovery. Benigno was smiling tearfully as she was rolled out in a wheelchair. She told staff she would never forget them in a video shared with the press. 'Straub Benioff team, I can't thank you all enough for the positive impact you've made, ' she is quoted as saying in a thank you note to the team. 'Each one of you has a piece of my heart. You made my life better when I felt like giving up. You are the reason I have a second chance in life. I know my journey isn't going to be easy, but I'll keep going strong, one day at a time.' She added, 'The Straub Benioff care team made me feel safe, especially when I was at my worst. They always made sure I was comfortable. My recovery was hard, but the care I received made it much better. Not only did they keep my spirits up with their help and smiles, but they also saved me through the toughest time of my life.' Dr. David Cho, Straub Benioff surgeon, recalls coming in one Sunday and seeing her awake for the first time while connected to a ventilator. It was a milestone in her recovery. 'Any patient with 80 % body burn is at real risk for death, ' he said in the release. 'Char is the survivor with the largest burn from the incident. Obviously, that makes us all so happy that she was able to survive this. More importantly, we all knew she had kids. The whole time we knew she had little kids to get home to. We knew she wanted to see the kids, and the kids wanted to see mom. So, that made it special.' Benigno still faces a long recovery ahead and will return every few weeks for skin grafts. Straub Benioff's Burn Care Unit took in a majority of the patients from the mass casualty incident on Jan. 1, including the most critically injured. On that night, the unit admitted 10 patients, which is the most from a single event than any other time in its 42-year history. The burn patients faced months of surgeries and treatments, plus recovery and rehabilitation. A total of six patients in critical condition were also sent by military plane to the Arizona Burn Center Valleywise Health for treatment and recovery. Five were from the center in March, and also face a long recovery ahead. The Jan. 1 fireworks explosion killed six and wounded dozens, and has led to at least 12 arrests and renewed efforts by lawmakers to crack down on the continued proliferation of illegal aerial fireworks in Hawaii. 13 Comments By participating in online discussions you acknowledge that you have agreed to the. An insightful discussion of ideas and viewpoints is encouraged, but comments must be civil and in good taste, with no personal attacks. If your comments are inappropriate, you may be banned from posting. Report comments if you believe they do not follow our. Having trouble with comments ? .
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Fireworks blast pushes hospital capacity
COURTESY ARIZONA BURN CENTER Six burned patients from the Aliamanu fireworks blast were transferred to the Diane & Bruce Halle Arizona Burn Center-Valleywise Health in Phoenix. COURTESY ARIZONA BURN CENTER Six burned patients from the Aliamanu fireworks blast were transferred to the Diane & Bruce Halle Arizona Burn Center-Valleywise Health in Phoenix. The Aliamanu fireworks blast just after midnight on New Year's, a mass casualty event, set new precedents in emergency health care response in Hawaii. The explosion was unprecedented, according to Gov. Josh Green during a news conference earlier this month, with numerous hospitals stepping up to coordinate care for the patients. That night, the Straub Benioff Medical Center's Burn Care Unit admitted 10 patients, the largest number admitted from a single event in its 42-year history, surpassing the nine admitted from the 2023 Maui wildfires. These were in addition to other patients already under care at the unit, and all hands were on deck as the Aliamanu patients were rushed to various hospitals around Oahu. 'We typically can care for a lot of different injuries, ' said Green at the Jan. 13 conference. 'We also prepare for what comes next … and needless to say, Straub and Queen's are always caring for huge numbers of patients in their ICUs.' But Hawaii hospitals were overwhelmed by the number of severely burned patients all at once, and the need became greater than capacity. Don 't miss out on what 's happening ! Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It 's FREE ! Email 28141 Sign Up By clicking to sign up, you agree to Star-Advertiser 's and Google 's and. This form is protected by reCAPTCHA. Upon Green's request, six of the severely injured patients—five from Queen's and one from Straub Benioff—were to the Arizona Burn Center-Valleywise Health. These six had injuries beyond burns, he said. This helped local hospitals maintain capacity for other patients, officials said, underscoring the need to prevent another tragedy of this magnitude from happening again. Like a battlefield The aftermath of the Aliamanu fireworks blast, which resulted in the deaths of three women and a 3-year-old boy, has been equated to the scene from a battlefield. Honolulu Emergency Medical Services set up a triage and sent more than 20 patients to various hospitals, including Straub Ben ioff, The Queen's Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Moanalua Medical Center among others. It was a night of urgency, with nurses and doctors called to come in during early-morning hours. Queen's, the state's only Level 1 trauma hospital, cared for some of the burn patients for up to four days. Straub Benioff, which runs the state's only burn unit serving Hawaii and the Pacific, receives more patients around New Year's on average than any other time of the year and prepares for this in advance, but this was unprecedented. The specialized team has managed more than 20 patients at a time, but the number it can care for depends on each patient and the severity of their burns, according to Dr. Robert Schulz, the Burn Care Unit's co-founder and medical director. 'Our Burn Care Unit, like the entire medical center, is built to be flexible, ' said Schulz in a statement. 'We have a highly trained team of about 100 and a majority are Advanced Burn Life Support certified. So, when we have tragedies with mass casualties, such as the Lahaina wildfires or the recent fireworks accident, we can expand our specialized care into other spaces at Straub Benioff.' Consortium at work The transfer of patients was possible thanks to the Western Region Burn Disaster Consortium, which is made up of burn centers that coordinate care during a mass casualty incident. More than a dozen states with 27 burn centers are members of the consortium, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. Dr. Kevin Foster, director of the Arizona Burn Center, which took in the six patients Jan. 4, said it was the first such transfer of multiple patients from Hawaii. Foster said in a that the six were still intubated and sedated but had undergone multiple surgeries and were 'on course ' in the recovery process. In addition to thermal burns, the six suffered wounds from flying shrapnel. Fireworks injuries, overall, make up fewer than 1 % of burn patients at the center, he said. They do occur during New Year's and the Fourth of July but are usually small injuries that don't require hospitalization. 'But every couple of years or so, there seems to be a big incident where we get multiple patients with big injuries—and so this year was New Year's in Oahu, ' said Foster. Hilton Raethel, president and CEO of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, called the Aliamanu fireworks explosion 'an extraordinary event ' without precedent. While the Maui wildfires resulted in 102 tragic deaths, the fireworks explosion is 'the biggest single burn incident in Hawaii history ' that he is aware of. 'We've never had to fly multiple patients at a time, ' he said. Straub Benioff's burn unit, he said, is the only facility in the state with the equipment, doctors, nurses and other medical personnel trained to treat burns. When patients are cared for in other hospitals ICUs, however, it means those beds are not available for others, such as stroke and heart attack patients. Another challenge is that burn patients stay in a hospital for much longer due to the extensive healing process. In general, patients spend one to two days in the hospital for every 1 % of their body that's burned, according to Foster. The six patients in Arizona experienced burns to 50 % or more of their bodies so are looking at months, plus additional time for rehabilitation. The initial moments of treating severely burned patients is crucial, according to Dr. Schulz, as burns are a unique type of trauma. 'A patient can walk into the emergency room with a burn they do not think is too serious, and if they don't immediately receive appropriate treatment, you can lose them, ' he said. Within 24 hours, for instance, the physiological changes brought on by the burned skin can become potentially lethal. 'The essential bacterial barrier and thermoregulation are lost, ' he said. 'Toxic products from the burn lead to vascular changes that require very large amounts of IV fluid. If not provided, the blood pressure will drop to shock levels, and kidneys will fail.' Beyond the initial trauma, treating burns is a complex and lengthy process, said Schultz. The skin grafting process can extend some hospitalizations up to nine months. Straub was able to discharge one of the Aliamanu patients but continues to care for some of the most serious and critically injured ones. Some have required several surgeries and will continue to undergo multiple skin grafting procedures. Injuries rising Data from the state Department of Health shows a spike in fireworks injuries over the New Year's holiday—from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1—over the past decade. For the New Year's holiday in 2024-2025, 110 injuries including the Aliamanu explosion were treated in emergency departments in Hawaii, compared with 29 a decade earlier in 2014-2015. In 2023-2024, DOH's EMS & Injury Prevention branch recorded 60 fireworks injuries, up from 54 the previous New Year's holiday. The lowest number recorded, 23, was in 2011-2012, after a stricter permitting system was implemented on Oahu. The most common injuries over the most recent New Year's were burns to the hands, head or face, affecting 58 % of patients. More than half, 52 %, suffered from blast injuries, and 26 % suffered both burn and blast injuries. At least 27 patients were hospitalized, DOH said, a record high, compared with an average of six over previous years. The patients ranged in age from 1 to 83. Doctors have said most of the patients at Straub Benioff and in Arizona are in their 20s and 30s. The injuries have risen despite efforts to put out messages on fireworks safety. Ever year, county fire departments send out reminders about firecracker permits, hours of permitted use and safety tips, like never allowing children to play with or ignite fireworks, and only lighting them one at a time. The Honolulu Fire Department recommended glow sticks as alternatives. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says even sparklers, often perceived as less hazardous, have caused severe burns as they can reach 2, 000 degrees Fahrenheit—hot enough to melt some metals. An estimated 9, 700 fireworks-related injuries were treated in U.S. emergency rooms in 2023, 700 of them for sparklers, according to the CPSC. Green urged Hawaii residents to stop using illegal aerials, saying 'we are just going to have to do that as a society ' to prevent another tragedy from happening. 'As a health care provider, I've just seen too much of it, ' he said. 'So please help us to turn the corner.' NEW YEAR'S FIREWORKS INJURIES RISING Data collected from emergency departments of 22 hospitals in the state, and two health centers (Hana and Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center ) Dec. 31 to Jan. 1. TIMEFRAME INJURIES 2024-2025 —110 —(91 on Oahu ) 2023-2024 60 2022-2023 54 2014-2015 29 2011-2012 ----23 2010-2011 91 2009-2010 112 Source : State Department of Health, EMS & Injury Prevention System Branch ----(A stricter permitting system was implemented on Oahu after 2010-2011, according to the state Department of Health.)
