By Devoun Cetoute | Miami Herald and David Goodhue | Miami Herald
Surgeons who operated on the 8-year-old boy who was bitten by a shark while snorkeling in the Florida Keys Monday described a meticulous surgery, patching large lacerations that had them initially concerned the child may lose his leg.
Richard Burrows was swimming with his father, David, and his 10-year-old sister, Rose, around Horseshoe Reef off Key Largo around 3:30 p.m. on Labor Day when the shark bit him on the leg. Two tourniquets had to be applied to stanch the bleeding, and he was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where surgeons performed emergency surgery to save his leg.
Dr. Brian Grottkau recalled the family and Richard as an "absolute delight" during the surgical process, he said at a press conference at Ryder Trauma Center Thursday.
"The family was supportive, calm, very practical and knowledgeable group," said Grottaku, chief of pediatric orthopedics and pediatric surgical services at Holtz Children's Hospital.
Meticulous surgery
Lt. Col. Vicente Nelson, the Ryder trauma surgeon who operated on Richard, had just started his shift when Richard was airlifted in with three major lacerations around his knee and smaller cuts on his right leg. He also had a bite in his upper left arm.
Nelson said he acted quickly, volunteering to take him into the operating room to begin patching him to prevent any infection from the seawater or the shark. There were initial fears of Richard possibly losing his leg, but these were quickly lessened as the surgery went on, Grotakku said.
The surgery took about three to four hours, with the team applying hundreds of sutures to hold the wounds together, the surgeons said.
"Thankfully, there was no vascular or major neurologic injury," Nelson said. "We wanted a good cosmetic result as well as a good functional result...Being a parent myself, I knew that would matter down the road."
Relatively quick recovery ahead
Richard was released from the hospital Wednesday and is on the road to recovery, the surgeons said. Grottaku said they are going to let his skin heal over the next few weeks, and then begin physical therapy, noting there is a delicate balance between healing and not letting his knee joint become stiff.
"I anticipate that at 8 years old with a kid with just a can-do attitude that this kiddo has, it will probably only be a six- to eight- week period of time before he's out running around on the soccer field," Grottaku said.
During the post-operation process, Richard asked Grottaku when he could get back in the water because he likes spearfishing.
"He wanted to know what timeline he would be able to get back out and resume spearfishing," Grotakku said.
It's unclear whether Richard and his family were spearfishing at the time of the shark bite.
Florida law prohibits spearfishing in the Upper Florida Keys in state waters from Long Key just south of Islamorada north to Miami-Dade County. In the ocean, the restrictions apply out to three miles from the nearest point of land.
The family was about three to four miles offshore at Horseshoe Key.
Shark bite off Key Largo
The family, who lives in Pinecrest, said in a statement this week that the shark that bit Richard was a blacktip that "rushed" them while they were in the water.
His father got him on their boat and applied a tourniquet to stop the heavy bleeding, according to a Monroe County Sheriff's Office incident report. Rose is also credited with keeping pressure on her brother's leg and holding it up to stem the bleeding while they rushed to shore to meet paramedics.
A captain of a commercial dive boat, Richard Hayden, 33, drove up to the family's vessel after hearing a distress call on his marine radio. He, too, applied a tourniquet and then guided the family to the Garden Cove Marina in Key Largo because the elder Burrows was not familiar with the area.
Nelson, the trauma surgeon, said the quick thinking of applying tourniquets and putting pressure on the wounds was integral to the success of Richard's surgery.
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