THE STORY OF SHAFKAT’S CLOSE
CALL,
SAVED BY PULSE OXIMETRY
From: Glenn Geelhoed
To: Internet:wendyk@nonin.com
Date: 8/30/02 9:16AM
Subject: Fwd: You have photos from PhotoWorks
Now I have a story for you, and a picture to go along with it!
I had sent you a few photos of my remote expedition into the Ladakhi Zanskar Range along the disputed border called the "LOC" in Kashmir (The "Line of Control" between Pakistan and India). You should have received a card from a remote outpost called Padum, the first road I encountered in three weeks, so that as a roadhead, I would have the mail carried out!
We had gone in with 32 donkeys and two horses to carry my medical kits and camping gear, while I (the only licensed clinician) and a group of medical students were seeing patients from the isolated roadless village areas of this alpine desert, with the kind of stunning backdrop scenery you have seen in the "sampler" attached (and there are a thousand more pictures like them or better still to come!)
As we made our clmb on foot, we stopped the first night in a "village" of 35 people called Hanaupata, and saw almost everyone there. The sickest person there, however, turned out to be my own GWU freshman medical student, Shafkat, a Bangladesh‑born American who was foggy and ataxic with loss of judgment and also severe fatigue.
We were only at 12,000 feet, and had plans to continue the next day through three passes, more than a mile higher, with Sangayla Pass at 17,960 feet coming up. While checking on the headachy female medical students, I stopped to see Shafkat, and slipped the portable Nonin Pulse Oximeter on him. To be sure it was reading right, I put it on my finger, and measured 97% saturation and a pulse of 76. Shafkat measured 52% O2 saturation and pulse 126. I have not seen people at this desaturation still talking and not in coma.
The repeated measurements confirmed his status, and I started Diamox and Lasix and the decisions at this point were easy. Although he wanted to go on (and higher!) I evacuated him at 4:00 AM on a horse with our best guide, Abdul, to carry him down to the nearest road and a bus whcih brought him to Leh hospital where he had a chest X‑Ray and underwent oxygen treatments for the following week.
Without a doubt, the Nonin pulse oximeter saved the life of my medical student, who recovered enough to have Abdul, the clever local guide, figure out the revised route we would take and they intercepted us two weeks later by running the route backwards‑‑at a lower elevation, so Shafkat was still able to participate in the final clinics.
At first, disappointed, he later realized just how lucky he was to have survived this dangerously low oxygenation, and the pattern of his measurements which I recorded in the referral letter to the Leh hospital where I had just the previous week given their Grand Rounds conferences is now his treasured souvenir.
There have been many instances of your pulse oximeter being used in life‑saving situations, which I have reported to you previously in my notes to you, for the patients we have treated. But, this time, the life you saved was one of our own staff participants. The photograph of him in his grave danger with your oximeter recording his nadir is in the attached access I am furnishing, with a later series of photos showing his complete recovery at the end of our trek when he had rejoined us.
Thank you!
GWG