6 days ago
Burn surgeon speaks on Boulder terror attack victims recovery while few still remain in hospital
AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — As a few of the Boulder terror attack victims remain in the hospital, a burn surgeon is giving insight into what their recovery may look like.
UCHealth reports three of the 12 victims remain in their care, as of Tuesday morning. Its Burn and Frostbite Center at the University of Colorado Hospital admits the largest number of patients from their region, from the Canadian border through New Mexico.
'The UCHealth Burn and Frostbite Center is the longest running burn center that's been verified by the American Burn Association for our region,' said Surgeon Dr. Cameron Gibson, of the University of Colorado Hospital. 'We treat all types of burns in our burn unit. That spans everything from scaled burns, to chemical burns, friction burns, road rash, as well as flame burns and they go from being small burns all the way to people who were burned almost their entire body.'
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While UCHealth could not speak on the current conditions of the Boulder victims, they did speak on what their recovery may look like.
'Depending on the depth of the burn, a burn might be treated with simply just pain medication, like a bad sunburn or a first-degree burn, but most burns that come to us are either second or third degree. They do require wound care, which can be quite involved, so we have trained nurses who specialize in burned wound care, that provide that to our patients on our unit. Then, depending on if it's a full thickness burn, like a third-degree burn, they may need surgical treatment, which would include excision removal of the burned skin with skin grafting,' said Gibson.
At last update from the Boulder Police Department, at least four men and four women were injured, with ages ranging from 55 to 88.
'Each patient is different. What their recovery timeline will be like, it's dependent on the size of the burn, the depth, how many surgeries they required and how long they were in our unit. In general, patients who recover from burns have a long recovery time meaning that they may have ongoing wound care after they leave the burn unit, they'll definitely have ongoing therapy, both occupational and physical therapy, and later on, they may develop scar, which may require scar management, all of which are things our unit provides, both on the in-patient side and the out-patient side,' said Gibson.
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