Severe burn injuries, zero chance of survival: After 471 days and 42 operations, Tageldin Ahmedhassan is released from the Sana Clinic in Offenbach.
Offenbach – It takes almost a second for the suffering to overwhelm you and the pain to become almost tangible. It is the sight of completely scarred skin. On the upper body, on the arms, on the face, on the hands. They are the burnt, milky eyes that squint from behind mask-like glasses, unable to see anything. It is these images that inevitably lead to the question: “How can a person even endure such pain?”
471 days in hospital: patient with severe burns is finally released
Tageldin Ahmedhassan could do it. There, in the semi-darkness of the Sana Hospital's severe burns ward, the Ukrainian refugee sits bolt upright on a chair in front of his special bed. It's lunchtime. In front of him is a tray. His hands are twisted like claws from the incredible heat of the flames, but they still hold the spoon securely. Today we have chicken with rice and carrots.
No employee at the Sana Clinic would have bet a single cent that he would make it this far. It has been 471 days since Tageldin Ahmedhassan was brought in by helicopter after a fire in a refugee home in northern Hesse.
Third degree burns on 65 percent of the skin
“He was really almost completely burned,” says Dr. Daniel Gill Schuster. Sixty-five percent of his skin had third-degree burns. When asked what that means specifically, the doctor first searches for the right words. In the end it becomes an example for which he apologizes as a precaution: “The skin is then hard, similar to a rind from the oven.” Gill-Schuster has to explain this so clearly so that what is coming is understandable. The skin was as hard as armor and the lungs no longer had room to work. The doctors make large relief incisions so that the chest can rise and fall again. Meanwhile, Tageldin Ahmedhassan is not conscious and is constantly sedated by the doctors. The pain at this stage would probably be more than a human could bear.
The medical team then begins to remove the burned skin with a scalpel. Including raw meat. In the meeting room, Daniel Gill-Schuster opens his notebook and clicks through the files. “Are they picture-proof?” he asks, turning the laptop over. What can be seen is a human torso on which not a single piece of intact skin can be found. Bloody tissue can be seen. The doctor explains: “His body was basically one burn at that point.”
Hospital germ spreads on the body: part of the foot has to be amputated
At the same time, the so-called burn disease occurs, a result of such severe burns. The body reacts to the wounds with a so-called fluid shift. The result is fluid loss and shock. The doctors take countermeasures and at some point connect the patient to an external lung, which enriches the blood with oxygen.
After a few days, the burn disease goes away and Tageldin Ahmedhassan can breathe on his own again. Because of this, his wounds become infected. A multi-resistant hospital germ that he brought to the hospital on his skin spreads to his defenseless body. “We had to resort to the strongest reserve antibiotics,” remembers Gill-Schuster. In addition, there is blood poisoning, which damages the kidneys and restricts blood circulation in his extremities. To save him, his left front foot is amputated. The flesh has already died there.
Not enough own skin left: fish skin filled the gaps
His condition then improved and the plastic surgeons around Dr. Camillo Müller begin to achieve the impossible. “We had to cover the wounds with skin again,” says Müller. But there was far too little unburnt skin left. “We simply couldn’t remove enough healthy tissue to cover the wounds,” says Müller, describing the problem. “It was like trying to replace a tablecloth with a napkin.”
The doctors are breaking new ground, ultimately using a technique in which the removed top layer of skin is cut into squares a few millimeters in size. These are applied to the raw meat using a contact plate at some distance from each other. “The pieces of skin then ideally grow together and grow towards each other, so that the gaps close.” In particularly stubborn areas, the specialists use fish skin, which is applied to the wound to enable healing.
The patient was in a coma at the Sana Clinic for months
“We really didn’t leave anything out,” Gill-Schuster and Müller agree. His doctors explain that Ahmedhassan was unaware of any of this in the first five months. He has been in an induced coma since day one. Nobody knows whether he will ever wake up again and what damage would then become apparent.
Nurse Muhamed Bajrami changes Ahmedhassan's bandages every day. It takes up to five hours. A delicate work that makes you wonder what you're actually doing it for. “For us, after all the setbacks and the third sepsis, he was actually doomed to die,” remembers Bajrami. During this time, an ethics council would have decided on a weekly basis about the pros and cons of further treatment for Ahmedhassan. “Nobody really knew whether it all made sense anymore.” Until one day at the beginning of May.
Family travels from Ukraine to Offenbach: “Recovery accelerated enormously”
Bajrami's voice becomes quieter as he describes how Ahmedhassan wakes up for the first time in months and realizes that his entire body and his eyesight have been destroyed. Bajrami's eyes moisten as the memory comes back. “He told us straight away that he wanted to live to see his son grow up.” From that moment on, it was clear to him and the whole team: “Now we’ll give 110 percent again so that he can do that.”
There follows a time when patience is required. His wife and son have now arrived from Ukraine to provide moral support and, thanks to the doctors' commitment, are allowed to stay permanently. “That accelerated his recovery enormously,” says Bajrami, receiving unanimous nods from the assembled medical team.
This is followed by skin graft after skin graft. The small squares are repeatedly placed on the raw meat. For months. In between he is bandaged like a mummy for hours. An ordeal for Ahmedhassan, but also for nurse Bajrami. He went through the procedure 250 times alone - and suffered too. “He is like a brother to me after all these hours,” says Bajrami. Ahmedhassan smiles. “Yes, brother,” he says. “I am so grateful for the help I received.”
The fact that his life will never be the same again as it was before the fire, that he will probably never be able to live without help, doesn't make Tageldin Ahmedhassan sad anymore. “It's been a tough few months, but now I'm hoping for the future and that I'll get better and better.” To prove it, he stands up as if in slow motion and takes a few steps. “The only thing that matters to me now is that I have my family with me. You don’t have to wish for more.” (rz)