Seatbelt Usage

By Dr. Phil Aaron

We all know that statistics state that seatbelts save lives; that we are more apt to have less injury if we are wearing our seatbelts. On the whole, wearing seatbelts is the thing to do. For one Adair Countian, however, recently this was not the case. On May 17^th of this year, Brittany Kimberlan was on her way toward Bowling Green to see her OB GYN physician. She had only recently been diagnosed as being pregnant. About five (5) miles out of Columbia on the Louie B. Nunn Parkway she hit a puddle and her Ford Focus hydroplaned, fishtailing, throwing her into the side of a cliff. This smashed the little Focus so badly that she had to crawl out on the passenger’s side. She spun around, hitting rocks, her head hit the window and the seatbelt caught her neck. She immediately had a left-sided headache and a knot on the back of her head was tender.

Even with these injuries she was able to crawl out of her car. She was taken to Westlake Hospital Emergency Room where a CAT scan of her head showed that all was okay. She had suffered a mild concussion, but her head continued to hurt her “really bad.” Since she as pregnant her choices of pain medicine for her headache were reduced. Twice she went back to the hospital emergency room and received shots and was told she needed to see a neurologist. She was sent to a neurologist in Somerset on the 26^th of May; was seen in the emergency room in Somerset where and MRI and an MRA of her neck were performed. She was found to have a total blockage of her left internal carotid artery. Her left external carotid artery was open. It was not blocked. There she was put on a different pain medicine and some prenatal vitamins, but she was still having headaches. Because she was still having headaches and because her grandmother was persistent in getting her somewhere to find the source of this headache she was next taken to Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown. There the MRI and MRA were repeated and she was seen by a cardiologist and all the while this did very little to help her headache. Even though she had found the source of her headache, the headache still persisted. Ella Dean Walkup, her grandmother, loaded her into the car on June 3 and took her to the University Hospital in Louisville. There her x-rays were reviewed and she was referred to a vascular surgeon. She saw several doctors in the teaching program and was told that nothing could be done, partly because she was pregnant and partly because her external carotid artery was open, even though her internal artery was occluded or stenosed.

On June 12 she was given an appointment with a neurologist in Louisville because her left arm and face and become numb. She was also sent over to the University Stroke Center because of her symptoms of numbness on her right side. The stroke team admitted her to be seen by a neurologist and it was there at the University of Louisville that she was first told that her neck had clotted off because she had been wearing a seatbelt and it had blocked her artery to her head. She was put on an IV blood thinner, Heparin, while she was there, at the University of Louisville, and when sent home was placed on Lovenox shots, a blood thinner. A pelvic ultrasound showed that she was carrying a little girl, and although at five (5) months pregnant she had only gained two (2) pounds.

So, finally, after trips to emergency rooms in Columbia, Somerset, Elizabethtown, and Louisville she was given treatment which caused her headaches to disappear. In addition to the headaches, she had a lot of head rushes, feeling as if there was not enough blood getting to her left side of her head. The doctors at the University of Louisville referred her to the neonatal high risk pregnancy physicians at the University of Kentucky of Medicine where she was told that the medicine she is on will not interfere with her pregnancy. This experience which Brittany has had illustrates a couple of points to remember in medicine. First, sometimes its good to get a second opinion or a third or a fourth opinion if a patient continues having symptoms. All rivalries aside, when push comes to shove, we see the University of Louisville School of Medicine referring to the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, a patient whom they feel can receive better treatment in Lexington. All these encounters with different types of physicians at different facilities had done nothing but intensify Brittany’s desire to attend Western Kentucky University to become a nurse.