HEALTH FIRST TRAUMA CENTER LIFE SAVERS: Charles Bevan, foreground, with, left to right, Susan Durkan, RN; Sam Pellegrino, MD; Bill Cambell, RN; Curtis Spotts, First Flight pilot; and David Rodriguez, paramedic.

BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Three years ago Charles Bevan was driving his car in Vero Beach, Florida when he collided head-on with a dump truck. Seventeen years old at the time, Charles was transported to The Trauma Center at Holmes Regional Medical Center on board the First Flight air ambulance, where the trauma team, including trauma physicians and sub-specialists, as well as skilled clinicians and technicians, were awaiting his arrival.

The horrific accident left him with a right frontal lobe injury, injured thoracic cavity, collapsed lung, as well as numerous fractured bones and internal injuries. After the emergency surgeries were completed, Charles began the road to healing while he remained in a coma in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit for a month. He remained in a coma for two more months after being moved to a rehabilitation facility.

Charles’ intelligence ranked in the genius category before the accident and has been re-training his brain since the accident. He could not talk or identify colors three years ago, but has made tremendous progress in recapturing 17 years of lost knowledge.

He started his college studies last Fall at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, and Bevan will begin study next month at Indian River State College where he plans to pursue a degree in Medical Technology. Charles and his family credit his mental and physical comeback to the amazing work of the trauma team.

“I was on track to become a doctor before my collision,” said Charles. “My recent aptitude test shows I’m well suited to become a medical technologist. I’m just very thankful for the phenomenal care I received from the Health First trauma team. Going back to visit the doctors and nurses who cared for me immediately following the injury and during that next month has helped me heal. I tell them to keep doing what they do because it makes such a difference. I also like to share my story with other families who are facing a traumatic situation such as the one my family and I endured.”

Dr. Pellegrino

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 Dr. 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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