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Miami Officer Gets Surgery While in Cruiser

He was trapped following a crash

By JOSE PAGLIERY
The Miami Herald

A predawn crash Tuesday on the Don Shula Expressway left a Miami police officer trapped in his car with a sign pole piercing his leg.

The crash, which happened just north of Kendall Drive, occurred when Officer Rolando Rodriguez lost control of his patrol car while driving south on wet roadways, according to Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Pat Santangelo.

The injury, along with the complication of getting Rodriguez out of his cruiser, led paramedics to do something unusual: Instead of immediately putting him on a helicopter to the hospital, they flew a surgeon to him.

The procedure worked. Rodriguez is now recuperating at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center, according to Dr. Louis R. Pizano, the surgeon who performed the operation.

It was the first time in Pizano's nine year career at the hospital that he performed surgery on a patient trapped in a car on the highway.

"And I hope never to do it again," a tired Pizano told reporters Tuesday morning.

Pizano, who started his 24-hour shift at 7 a.m. Monday, had just finished performing an emergency operation on a patient at the hospital when he heard about the 3 a.m. crash from a message on his pager.

A nurse immediately informed him a police officer was stuck in a smashed cruiser on the side of the highway in Kendall -- with a construction sign in his leg.

But Miami-Dade Fire Rescue paramedics wouldn't be able to get him out in time to stop the bleeding, meaning the doctor would have to go to him.

As the helicopter neared, Pizano quickly assembled his kit: Gigli wire saw, scalpels, clamps, bandages, painkillers and sedatives.

Air Rescue South's pilots kept the chopper's long rotor blades spinning when they landed it at Ryder's helicopter pad at 3:10 a.m. They took off with Pizano onboard 15 minutes later, according to fire rescue records.

As the helicopter raced southwest, Pizano ran four different scenarios in his head as he planned how he would treat Rodriguez. When they landed near the crash at 3:30 a.m., the scene was brutal.

"One of the poles that was holding up the construction sign pierced the driver's door of the patrol car, went through the leg of the officer and came out the window," Santangelo said.

The car had come to a rest on the left shoulder facing side ways.

Undaunted, Pizano had paramedics suit him up, and he got to work.

Fire rescue personnel tore off the driver's side door, giving Pizano enough room to stop the bleeding, apply what he called "lots of morphine" and surgically remove the sign from Rodriguez's leg.

"His police car became an operating room," said fire rescue spokesman Lt. Eddy Ballester.

For exactly one hour, Pizano and the firefighters surrounding the car took turns performing tasks -- Pizano operating on Rodriguez and firefighters cutting away at the car's metal roof. The most difficult part, Pizano said, was to avoid hurting Rodriguez further while keeping him alert by not applying enough pain medication to knock him out.

"It's a fine line," Pizano said.

By 4:30 a.m., they were done freeing Rodriguez from his cruiser and loading him onto the chopper, Pizano at his side.

"Without a doubt, it worked," Ballester said of the procedure.

Rodriguez is now recovering at Ryder. When asked if the officer was all right, Pizano responded gleefully: "He should be."

Florida Highway Patrol is now investigating the cause of the crash.

Miami police are holding a blood drive for Rodriguez until 7 p.m. Tuesdaty at their downtown station, which is located at 400 NW 2 Ave.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service