HeathWatch Spotlight
KODY BEST with Dr. Sam Pellegrino, co-medical director of The Trauma Center at Holmes Regional Medical Center.
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Dakota Best, or “Kody” as his friends and family know him, was traumatically injured last year following an ATV accident that left him near death. His mother and grandparents credit saving the life of then 13-year-old Kody to the surgeons and clinical team at The Trauma Center at Holmes Regional Medical Center where he was treated.
Kody, who lives in Palm Bay, does not remember his four-wheeler accident or the Jeep that crushed him and hurled him 300-feet away. Though he was unconscious, his family remembers the long ambulance ride from Vero Beach where the accident occurred to The Trauma Center because the winds were too strong for him to be transported by helicopter.
He suffered a ruptured spleen, a fractured skull, a collapsed lung, respiratory failure, numerous broken bones, and a crushed leg that resulted in a partial leg amputation. Kody and his family do remember the compassionate physicians and nurses who became his caretakers and extended family for his month-long stay at the hospital.
Though Kody now walks with a prosthesis, he excels at Florida Air Academy where he attends school, is an active bugle corps member, a baseball player, a junior umpire and a very positive young man. He now visits the hospital waiting room to share his experience with other families going through similar situations.
“Our family is so thankful and humbled by the care that the trauma team gave Kody after his ATV accident,” said Careen Best, Kody’s mother. “From the person who emptied the trash can in his room, to the nurse who wrapped her arms around him to warm his body temperature, to the surgeons who miraculously brought him back from the brink of death, we can’t express the gratitude we feel for the entire Trauma Center team. They saved Kody’s life.”
Dr. Turk
Specialized Care on Demand
Holmes Regional Medical Center is home to one of just 22 trauma centers in Florida, a regional Level II center that opened 10 years ago with a coverage area that now includes Brevard and Indian River counties, with patients coming from as far away as Okeechobee when needed.
“The sooner you get the people here the better,” says trauma surgeon Bartel Turk, who along with Dr. Sam Pellegrino, is the co-medical director of The Trauma Center at HRMC. “When somebody’s bleeding, you only have so much time to get that bleeding under control. We will have people show up here basically pulseless, what we would call a trauma code and we can get them back if they get here soon enough.”
Experienced trauma/critical care nurse Dianna Liebnitzky directs the trauma program at Holmes Regional Medical Center and is a past president of the state Trauma Program Manager’s Association.
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HOLMES REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER in Brevard County, Florida is home to one of just 22 trauma centers in Florida, a regional Level II center that opened 10 years ago.
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