A Very Special Patient

The latest accident case at the Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton, Mass., was clearly someone special. Ted Kennedy was not only a U.S. Senator and a brother of the late President, he was one of the hospital's rare air-crash patients (TiME, June 26), and he was in desperate condition.

Youth & Strength. "Senator Kennedy," said the hospital's senior surgeon, Dr. Thomas Corriden, "was in deep shock when he was admitted. His pulse varied a great deal; his blood pressure was almost negligible." Some of his ribs were fractured, along with three vertebrae in his lower back. One kid ney was bruised, and a lung was punctured. He was in such bad shape that no time was wasted trying to stitch up a 6-in. gash in his right hand. He was given several transfusions, fluid and air were removed from his chest cavity to help his breathing, and he was put in an oxygen tent.

In a matter of days Ted Kennedy's condition changed from "serious" to "good." But the doctors credited the quick recovery not so much to their treatment as their patient's youth and strength--and his generous supply of luck.

Rigid but Sore-Free. It was sheer good fortune that the broken vertebrae were in the lumbar region and did not damage the end of the spinal cord--a far less serious situation than if they had been in the cervical or thoracic areas, where the cord might have been severed by dislocation of the bones. A break of any of the cervical vertebrae could have paralyzed Teddy's body from the neck down, while a fracture of any of the twelve thoracic vertebrae might well have paralyzed his trunk or legs.

When Kennedy was first admitted to the hospital, he was strapped in a canvas and metal stretcher called a Stryker frame, but later he was switched to a larger Foster frame to accommodate his 6-ft. 2-in., 230-lb. bulk. Named for the Houston surgeon who devised it in 1939 for recuperating back-fracture patients, the Foster frame is a kind of reversible bed in which the patient is immobilized between a pair of sturdy canvas slings. Besides keeping the spine rigid--which is absolutely essential during the bone-healing period--the Foster frame helps prevent the patient from getting bedsores.

How long Teddy will have to stay in the pipe and canvas contraption, no one can yet be sure. But he will not be moved for at least six weeks, and there is still a chance that his fractures will require surgical repair. He may be outfitted with a brace or plaster cast, but in any case he faces three to six months in bed, possibly in a Foster frame.

Although the pilot and Teddy's aide, Edward Moss, were killed in the crash, the Kennedy luck stretched far enough to cover his other traveling companions, Indiana Senator and Mrs. Birch Bayh. Strapped down by their seat belts, the Bayhs suffered torn back muscles, but they were saved from serious or fatal injuries. What puzzled the doctors, though, was how the Senator had been able to help Kennedy get away from the wreck. Once he got to the hospital and had time to realize how badly he had been banged up, Bayh was in too much pain to move.

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