"Reattaching
Sara's arm was just one of the challenging trauma surgeries we faced that
week." —
Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery
Jon Loftus, MD
Sara was helping her
father clear ice from the
fertilizer spreader the
morning that her parka
was pulled into the
moving machine.
Sara managed to squirm
free, but not before
her right arm was
wrenched off above
the elbow.
With her severed arm
packed in snow, Sara was
airlifted from Waverly, NY, to
Robert Packard Hospital in Sayre, PA—and told
there was little hope of reattachment. As emergency
room doctors were calling Philadelphia for help,
Sara’s mother—who knew that Syracuse had a
Level 1 Trauma Center—suggested "Why don't you
call University Hospital?"
In Syracuse, University Hospital plastic surgeon
Dr. Jon Loftus made no promises, since Sara's arm
was badly mangled. But—within an hour—he had
met Sara on the hospital's helipad and ushered her
into the operating room. For the next 14 hours,
Dr. Loftus and his University Hospital team
reconstructed and reattached bones, blood
vessels, muscles, tendons and skin. It was
grueling work, but with glimmers of hope—as
when oxygen flow to the reattached arm measured
98 percent, almost immediately.
From the moment of the accident,
Sara never cried or complained. News
of her courage and irrepressible optimism
spread. When she left University Hospital 10 days
later, with her arm in traction, it took three cars to
carry her get-well gifts.
Sara has since repaid her many friends, doctors
and "her hospital" with a remarkable recovery.
After two years of physical therapy, she's back
playing sports and musical instruments, fishing,
driving a tractor and helping out on the farm.
"Nothing stops me," says Sara.
Dr. Loftus vividly remembers Sara's resilience.
Reattaching her arm was just one of the challenging
trauma surgeries his team faced that week.
Last year, University Hospital treated 6,000 trauma
patients. Here, life-threatening and life-altering
accidents are routine...as are inspiring
stories like Sara's.
