By Jonathan D. Silver
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2006 P.G. Publishing Co.
One of Ben Roethlisberger’s surgeons yesterday would not directly address statements by the Steelers’ quarterback that he was within a minute of death before a paramedic stanched his bleeding after a motorcycle accident.
But Dr. Daniel W. Pituch, who repaired Roethlisberger’s facial fractures at Mercy Hospital with five titanium plates, said those kinds of injuries can involve heavy bleeding that could prove fatal if not dealt with quickly because of blood blocking the airway.
“I can’t speculate on that,” Pituch said during a news conference yesterday when asked about Roethlisberger’s comment about being close to death. “But he had significant fractures with significant bleeding.”
Pituch is chief of Mercy’s division of oral and maxillofacial surgery.
When pressed on the issue, Pituch said, “I can’t disagree with the statements he’s made.”
On June 12, Roethlisberger, 24, smacked his motorcycle into a car that turned left and failed to yield to him at Second Avenue and 10th Street. He was not wearing a helmet. Roethlisberger lost two teeth, sustained a concussion, and his jaw and other facial bones were broken.
Police cited the quarterback for his lack of a helmet and riding without a motorcycle endorsement on his driver’s license. They also cited Martha Fleishman, 62, of Squirrel Hill, the driver of the car with which he collided, for failing to yield the right of way.
Neither the city paramedic who first treated Roethlisberger nor two of the doctors who handled his case at Mercy would comment on the specifics of the quarterback’s injuries, citing privacy laws.
Ryan Tollner, Roethlisberger’s agent, said the paramedics and doctors told Roethlisberger and his family that it was fortunate the accident happened so close to Mercy Hospital, otherwise the young quarterback might have choked on his own blood.
“The quantity of blood in his stomach was so vast and built up so fast that it could have easily blocked his airway,” said Tollner.
“They ultimately pumped his stomach,” he said. “If they had not caught the blood that was rushing to his stomach, in a matter of minutes he could have easily drowned.”
He said doctors were surprised with the amount of blood that had built up in Roethlisberger’s stomach.
“They were saying ‘Wow, there is an unbelievable amount of blood in his stomach that the average person probably could not withstand,’ ” Tollner said. “This was a near-tragic situation.”
Dr. Larry Jones, Mercy’s chief of trauma surgery, who treated Roethlisberger, said facial fractures in general can result in an “immediately life-threatening situation.”
Blood, mucus and other secretions can clog the airway. An additional complication that could be faced by someone with a broken jaw is lack of support for the tongue, which can slip back and block the throat.
“When you lose your airway, that’s an immediately life-threatening situation. Those situations have to be recognized fairly quickly,” Jones said. “There are some basic life-saving maneuvers that medics and physicians and nurses are taught to do to clear the airway of these secretions and other maneuvers that we are taught to give more support to the tongue.”
Jones said the carotid artery, a main blood vessel that goes to the brain by way of the neck, has branches that traverse different parts of the face. They can bleed heavily if cut.
Jones and Pituch praised paramedics in general, saying they play an integral role in trauma response. Yesterday, paramedic Daniel Capatolla, who was the first to tend to Roethlisberger, spoke publicly about treating the quarterback, saying it was just another day on the job.
Capatolla and his partner, Scott Everitt, were just blocks away en route to their station on the Boulevard of the Allies when they heard a call for a motorcycle accident with a man lying in the street.
At the scene, Capatolla said he knew almost immediately that his patient was Roethlisberger.
“I asked if he was OK, and he looked at me and asked me if it was a dream,” the 23-year veteran paramedic recalled. “I assured him that it wasn’t.”
Capatolla, 43, assessed the patient’s airway. He said there was no discussion at the scene of how close the quarterback might be to death.
Roethlisberger inquired if he would play football again.
“We said things were looking OK and time would tell. Obviously, we couldn’t give him a definite right there,” Capatolla said.
This week, Roethlisberger has spent considerable time discussing the accident and his plans for the football season. He said his motorcycle riding is done for now and his focus is solely on football.
“Once this season’s over, maybe I’ll start thinking about if I’m going to ride again, but the season’s too close,” he said in an interview broadcast yesterday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “Training camp is less than three weeks away. I don’t have time to think about anything but getting better and getting ready for training camp.”
During that interview, he also said: “I forgot I have to live this life under the microscope and that people are always watching and criticizing everything I do ... coming off two pretty good seasons in the NFL, winning a Super Bowl and 24 years old, and maybe I felt a little invincible, and this was God’s way of saying, ‘Hey, I can take it away from you at any time, so you’d better back off a little bit.’ ”
Asked yesterday in Stateline, Nev., whether he would be gun-shy the first time “a big linebacker” came at him, Roethlisberger joked that he was always gun-shy when a big linebacker came at him. But he said he didn’t think he would alter his style of play.
Roethlisberger said Steelers coach Bill Cowher told him: “You’re a free spirit, and that’s what makes you special, makes you who you are, and I love that free spiritedness. But you better be careful from now on.”
Roethlisberger told reporters in Stateline that it was “sad” that the driver who struck him had been harassed (police are investigating) and added that he forgave her.
“Hopefully all that stuff stopped and she can get on with her life as best as she can,” he said.
He also said he had no plans to become a helmet advocate or appear on billboards as the helmet poster boy, explaining that he felt wearing a helmet was a personal choice.