Saturday, May 30, 2020

Second surgery goes well for Webb City policeman struck by alleged drunk driver

Webb City Police Sgt. Brian Ward, who was hit by an alleged drunk driver Tuesday while vacationing with his family in Florida, underwent his second surgery today, his wife Heather reported in a Facebook post this evening.

The surgery was originally scheduled to take place Friday, but was postponed due to blood clots in his leg, according to Mrs. Ward.

Ward suffered a severely broken right leg, injuries to his left leg and had 12 staples placed in the back of his head after the car dragged him 75 yards.

The Wards' two-year-old son Knox, who Ward was placing in a child safety seat at the time of accident, was also injured, but has been transferred to a regular hospital room, Mrs. Ward said in a Facebook post Thursday night.








Doctors have offered an optimistic prognosis for Ward, but are concerned about infection, his wife wrote:

Brian’s surgeon is amazing. We absolutely love that he goes above and beyond to make sure we understand the whole process.

Brian had surgery today. They weren’t able to get as far as they had hoped. I am thankful they are taking their time and being thorough.

He has a tunnel from his shin above his knee which has created an air pocket above his knee. This is not a normal thing so they took a couple hours and cleaned that area and flushed it really well. He also had a hematoma in that area as well. 



They added a drain to help prevent infection. Infection is our number one concern. It did not seem infected at this point but two samples were sent to the lab. I will post a picture of his x-ray. Brian has a lot of swelling. The skin was stretched pretty far to get it stitched back up. 

At some point a plastic surgeon may have to get involved with that area. The next step would be an incision on the other side of the leg which they can’t do until the swelling goes down. We hope for the next surgery to be Tuesday. 

Brian also has pulmonary embolisms (blood clots in his lungs). They have been monitoring that situation too. He has two torn ligaments around his knee. They cannot do anything about that until the bones are fixed.

Brian had some swelling in his leg during the covid shut down from sitting in his patrol car for long periods. Swelling went down so he never got that checked. It was in fact a blood clot. On impact this broke loose and also dispersed into smaller clots. Those are what are in his lungs.










The doctor said we are not out of the woods by any means but he is very optimistic. This type of injury has a 45% infection rate. Infection is the biggest concern.

Again, thank you all for your love and support.

An account has been established at Pinnacle Bank to help the Ward family with medical expenses:

WARD FAMILY BENEFIT ACCOUNT

Here is a list of the Joplin metro Pinnacle Bank locations:

1010 S Madison Street, Suite M, Webb City
802 S Main Street, Joplin
2433 S Rangeline Road, Joplin
1316 E 32nd Street, Joplin
1651 W 7th Street, Joplin
501 Cross St, Sarcoxie


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