Newswise — MAYWOOD, IL – 7-year old Brayden Findlay, who was injured on November 29 in a tragic house fire that killed his grandmother, was released from Loyola University Medical Center on Monday, December 20. Brayden's mother Melissa Compean saved him from the early morning fire by climbing through a window to rescue her son. Neighbors called 911 and the Chicago Fire Department was on the scene within minutes. They immediately brought Brayden to the Loyola Medicine Burn Center. He had suffered a life-threatening inhalation injury and had third-degree burns to his arms and hands.
Joshua Carson, MD, FACS, regional director of Loyola Medicine's Burn Center says his team administered specialized aerosolize treatments to reduce the swelling in his airway. "We figured out some ways to give them some special treatments to avoid putting a tube in him to breathe for him right away, which was really good for him. It let his airway get some time to sort of calm down a little bit." Later, they were able to safely intubate him for surgery. Brayden was on a ventilator for several days, but is back to breathing on his own.
Dr. Carson also treated Brayden with a revolutionary technique that provides an alternative to traditional large-scale skin grafts. "We take the patient's skin and use a special kit from a company called AVITA that dissolves the skin into individual cells. Then you can mix it into a spray and you spray that skin on top of just little bitty pieces of graft. So rather than have a big slab of his skin scarring up his arms, he's got little lines of skin graft. And then he's got this spray so that it can heal more like natural skin."
His mother Melissa Compean was also injured in the fire. She was taken to another hospital to be treated for an inhalation injury. After she was released, she came to visit Brayden and had trouble breathing. She was admitted to the Loyola Burn Center for additional treatment. Of the team at Loyola, she says, "They're family now, just because they've been there and really care about our well-being. They're not just doing a job. They're really looking out for the two of us."
Dr. Carson is proud his team was able to help Brayden, but says, "The people who save this kid's life are his mother and the Chicago Fire Department. Despite having to breathe in all that smoke, his mom was not going to leave her baby behind and grabbed him and pulled him out of that house. And the fire department brought him to us immediately and in such good shape. There's so many things they could have done if they didn't know better, but they do know better. This is one of the best fire departments in the country."
Melissa remembers, "I'm terrified of fire. So me going into the fire was my mama bear response. I didn't want him hurt at all. I was trying to save him. Thank god, I faced my own fear."
Brayden is headed to a rehabilitation facility where he can continue working with physical and occupational therapists to rebuild muscle in his arms and hands. Keeping his hands moving is vital to preventing scarring. He'll also work on continuing to improve his cardiovascular health.
Loyola Medicine’s Burn Center provides expert, comprehensive care to patients with burn injuries or other complicated wounds. The center houses an expanded hydrotherapy area for cleaning and dressing wounds, as well as a rehabilitation area where physical and occupational therapists work with patients. Loyola’s multidisciplinary team at the Burn Center includes specialized burn surgeons, burn nurses, psychologists, nutritional support and rehabilitative services. An outpatient burn clinic is open five days a week to provide outpatient wound and follow-up care and advanced therapies for the treatment of problematic scars.
Video of Brayden and his mother Melissa Compean, as well as interviews with Joshua Carson, MD, FACS, regional director of Loyola Medicine's Burn Center are available at this dropbox link. Please credit Loyola Medicine.
To learn more about Loyola Medicine and the Burn Center or to schedule an appointment, visit loyolamedicine.org.
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About Loyola Medicine
Loyola Medicine, a member of Trinity Health, is a nationally ranked academic, quaternary care system based in Chicago's western suburbs. The three-hospital system includes Loyola University Medical Center, Gottlieb Memorial Hospital and MacNeal Hospital, as well as convenient locations offering primary care, specialty care and immediate care services from more than 1,800 physicians throughout Cook, Will and DuPage counties. Loyola is a 547-licensed-bed hospital in Maywood that includes the William G. & Mary A. Ryan Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine, the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, a Level 1 trauma center, Illinois's largest burn center, a certified comprehensive stroke center and a children’s hospital. Loyola also trains the next generation of caregivers through its academic affiliation with Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine and Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing. Gottlieb is a 247-licensed-bed community hospital in Melrose Park with the newly renovated Judd A. Weinberg Emergency Department, the Loyola Center for Metabolic Surgery and Bariatric Care and the Loyola Cancer Care & Research facility at the Marjorie G. Weinberg Cancer Center. MacNeal is a 374-licensed-bed teaching hospital in Berwyn with advanced medical, surgical and psychiatric services, acute rehabilitation, an inpatient skilled nursing facility and a 68-bed behavioral health program and community clinics. Loyola Medical Group, a team of primary and specialty care physicians, offers care at over 15 Chicago-area locations. For more information, visit loyolamedicine.org. You can also follow Loyola Medicine on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
About Trinity Health
Trinity Health is one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic health care delivery systems in the nation, serving diverse communities that include more than 30 million people across 22 states. Trinity Health includes 92 hospitals, as well as 100 continuing care locations that include PACE programs, senior living facilities, and home care and hospice services. Its continuing care programs provide nearly 2.5 million visits annually. Based in Livonia, Mich., and with annual operating revenues of $18.8 billion and assets of $30.5 billion, the organization returns $1.3 billion to its communities annually in the form of charity care and other community benefit programs. Trinity Health employs about 123,000 colleagues, including 6,800 employed physicians and clinicians. Committed to those who are poor and underserved in its communities, Trinity Health is known for its focus on the country's aging population. As a single, unified ministry, the organization is the innovator of Senior Emergency Departments, the largest not-for-profit provider of home health care services — ranked by number of visits — in the nation, as well as the nation’s leading provider of PACE (Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly) based on the number of available programs. For more information, visit trinity-health.org. You can also follow Trinity Health on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
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