You Can Be a Hero Too—Help Us Stop the Bleeding

Continued Progress in Trauma Care Requires Trauma Research Today

Dr. Ronald Stewart, Trauma & Emergency Surgery Chief at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio doesn’t wear a cape, but he should.

Six-year-old Nicholas Velasquez was not expected to live after a drunk driver slammed head-on into his family’s car. The highly trained paramedics who arrived at the scene of the crash within minutes were able to stabilize the San Antonio boy enough to transport him, with sirens screaming, to University Hospital—a level 1 trauma center fully staffed with surgeons and specialists around-the-clock.

Nicholas’ abdominal wall was destroyed, his intestines severely damaged and his aorta torn. In addition, his spine was broken and, due to blood loss, he had severe vascular complications in his legs.

“He is definitely one of the sickest children we’ve taken care of who survived,” said Stewart, the attending trauma surgeon at University Hospital that evening and a National Trauma Institute board member.

Today, Nicholas plays soccer, and his mother, Angelica, is grateful every day for the gift of life that Dr. Stewart and every trauma care professional—from the paramedics to the rehabilitation specialists—gave her son in the many long months between the collision and his return to a normal, happy childhood. Just thinking about Nicholas’ ordeal brings tears to her eyes, “Dr. Stewart is absolutely our hero!”

Yet, there are still many people who need a hero, and there is still much room for improvement in the trauma community—there are thousands more people who could survive their traumatic injuries, and thrive like Nicholas, if only the right treatments were available. More than 170,000 people in the United States die each year, and hundreds of thousands more are disabled as a result of traumatic injury.

It is critical that we improve the treatment of trauma so that every victim has the chance to live a productive and happy life like Nicholas—and the key to that improvement is research.

NTI works tirelessly to raise money for clinical research related to trauma in order to supplement the meager funding for this medical category at the federal level. And our rigorous peer-review process ensures that the money we grant goes only to those clinical studies with the highest promise for delivering results that will lead to advances in practice in the shortest amount of time.

Funding for trauma research needs heroes so that more trauma victims can have heroes! Will you be a hero? Click here to discover all the ways you can save the day!