scrubbed the blood, dirt, and bear saliva off my neck, face, and forehead with gauze andsquirts of hydrogen-peroxide/sterile-saline solution. Then he took an electric razor to me. As he followed the contours of my misshaped head, my sun-streaked hair, matted with blood and forest debris, dropped off in clumps. Over the top and around the sides, he carefully navigated around my wounds. As Kallman worked up top, Dr. David Wrigleyoversaw the cleaning of the multiple puncture wounds from my shoulders down, on my arms and legs mostly, some deep enough to bury a finger well past the first knuckle.
Kallman covered the disaster area across the middle of my face with moist gauze and, to ensure a clear airway, bathed my neck in Betadine in preparation for a tracheotomy, a procedure he could do practically blindfolded. Extend the neck. Find the solid ring around the trachea called the cricoid. Move a finger’s width down in the soft spot below. Incise the skin horizontally. Then dissect vertically in the center down to the trachea. Enter the trachea with a horizontal incision. Insert the tracheotomy tube into the windpipe. Inflate the cuff. Confirm placement and secure to the skin. Done.
He then rotated the operating table away from the anesthesiologist 180 degrees so he could easily move from one side of my head to the other as he worked. He prepped my face with Betadine, covered the intact parts with sterile drapes, and began extensive exploration of my wounds. Starting at the top, he found that five of the six arteries to my forehead and scalp had been severed. From my mid-forehead down he found few recognizable landmarks. Where my forehead was split, the skin peeled back like an orange, he could see bone and bone fragments. It appeared to him that the bear had not only bitten me across the face, it had chewed. Some of the skin of my shattered nose was also torn back, leaving my nasal cavities open with brain tissue visible amid the ruins. Looking into the top of my mouth, he could see that my palate was split open.
He moved on to my eyes. The upper and lower eyelids were shredded. My left eye, hanging loosely from vascularized tissue, was detached from the optic nerve and lying on the right side of what had been my nose. My right eye, which didn’t appear to be attached to much of anything viable,lay near the other.
Despite the initial washing, the wounds were still filthy. With a fiber-optic headlamp strapped to his forehead and wearing magnifying loupes that resembled Buddy Holly glasses fitted with miniature binoculars, he began to pick out every speck of dried blood, dirt, twig, grass, leaf, spruce needle, and bear hair, all of which were scrambled with tissue and bone shards and driven deep into my nasal passages, eye-socket rubble, and the base of my skull. This was going to be a marathon. He lowered the operating table and pulled up a stool.
As I lay unconscious beneath a warming blanket and blazing lights, Amber and her best friend, Bekkie Volino, were on their way to Bear Valley in Amber’s truck on one of the most gorgeous days of summer. Amber still had land on her mind, and wanted to show her friend some of the properties I’d shown her that spring, including my cabin and the piece of land she was interested in next door.
No one knew Amber better than Bekkie. They’d come to Alaska together on a festival-hopping road trip with a third girlfriend, two dogs, and all their gear crammed into Amber’s car, an Oldsmobile with blown shocks and a rear end slathered in bumper stickers with slogans like “Not all who wander are lost.” They had spent the remainder of that summer living out of a tent in Girdwood, using the trunk of Amber’s car as a closet, before upgrading to that off-the-grid cabin up Crow Creek Road that wasn’t much bigger than a chicken coop and had a zip line for hauling down firewood and gear.
Dressed in a gauzy shirt, a short skirt, and Birkenstocks, Amber had a daydreamy smile on her face
Kallman covered the disaster area across the middle of my face with moist gauze and, to ensure a clear airway, bathed my neck in Betadine in preparation for a tracheotomy, a procedure he could do practically blindfolded. Extend the neck. Find the solid ring around the trachea called the cricoid. Move a finger’s width down in the soft spot below. Incise the skin horizontally. Then dissect vertically in the center down to the trachea. Enter the trachea with a horizontal incision. Insert the tracheotomy tube into the windpipe. Inflate the cuff. Confirm placement and secure to the skin. Done.
He then rotated the operating table away from the anesthesiologist 180 degrees so he could easily move from one side of my head to the other as he worked. He prepped my face with Betadine, covered the intact parts with sterile drapes, and began extensive exploration of my wounds. Starting at the top, he found that five of the six arteries to my forehead and scalp had been severed. From my mid-forehead down he found few recognizable landmarks. Where my forehead was split, the skin peeled back like an orange, he could see bone and bone fragments. It appeared to him that the bear had not only bitten me across the face, it had chewed. Some of the skin of my shattered nose was also torn back, leaving my nasal cavities open with brain tissue visible amid the ruins. Looking into the top of my mouth, he could see that my palate was split open.
He moved on to my eyes. The upper and lower eyelids were shredded. My left eye, hanging loosely from vascularized tissue, was detached from the optic nerve and lying on the right side of what had been my nose. My right eye, which didn’t appear to be attached to much of anything viable,lay near the other.
Despite the initial washing, the wounds were still filthy. With a fiber-optic headlamp strapped to his forehead and wearing magnifying loupes that resembled Buddy Holly glasses fitted with miniature binoculars, he began to pick out every speck of dried blood, dirt, twig, grass, leaf, spruce needle, and bear hair, all of which were scrambled with tissue and bone shards and driven deep into my nasal passages, eye-socket rubble, and the base of my skull. This was going to be a marathon. He lowered the operating table and pulled up a stool.
As I lay unconscious beneath a warming blanket and blazing lights, Amber and her best friend, Bekkie Volino, were on their way to Bear Valley in Amber’s truck on one of the most gorgeous days of summer. Amber still had land on her mind, and wanted to show her friend some of the properties I’d shown her that spring, including my cabin and the piece of land she was interested in next door.
No one knew Amber better than Bekkie. They’d come to Alaska together on a festival-hopping road trip with a third girlfriend, two dogs, and all their gear crammed into Amber’s car, an Oldsmobile with blown shocks and a rear end slathered in bumper stickers with slogans like “Not all who wander are lost.” They had spent the remainder of that summer living out of a tent in Girdwood, using the trunk of Amber’s car as a closet, before upgrading to that off-the-grid cabin up Crow Creek Road that wasn’t much bigger than a chicken coop and had a zip line for hauling down firewood and gear.
Dressed in a gauzy shirt, a short skirt, and Birkenstocks, Amber had a daydreamy smile on her face
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