Surgeries, skin grafts await Tega Cay burn victim

Inch by inch, surgeons are cutting away the painful remnants of that terrible night just days before Christmas.

Almost daily, Connor McKemey is wheeled into an operating room at an Augusta, Ga., burn center, where an elite team of specialists carefully, painstakingly removes the burned skin from his back, his face, his arms, his legs. When they have done as much as his 13-year-old body can handle, his newly cleansed wounds are covered with cadaver skin to prepare them for grafting.

In a few weeks, surgeons will graft Connor's wounds with his own skin - skin that was harvested from a small area of his body that wasn't burned by the fire; Skin that today is growing in a laboratory in Massachusetts.

Connor was burned over 85 percent of his body when a fire erupted out of an outdoor fireplace at his family's Tega Cay home two weeks ago.

Most of the burns he suffered were third-degree burns, meaning they injured the full thickness of the skin, as well as the underlying tissue.

Connor is on a machine that breathes for him because the inside of his lungs were burned slightly during the accident and the extent of his burns makes it difficult for him to breathe on his own.

Doctors continuously monitor Connor's body for complications from being burned - infection, pneumonia, organ failure.

"Every day is a wait game," said Connor's mother, Karin McKemey, who was burned during the accident trying to help him. "He is a strong and very active person, which has helped him."

Each year, more than 40,000 people are hospitalized because of burn injuries, according to a report by the American Burn Association. More than 60 percent of those are admitted to one of the nation's 125 burn centers; 94 percent of those admitted to a burn center have survived, the report states.

Burn injuries are more common during the winter months because people are doing activities to keep themselves warm, such as boiling water and building fires, said Dr. Richard Cartie, a pediatric burn care specialist at the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta, where Connor and his mother are being treated.

Pediatric patients suffering from burn injuries tend to be more resilient to complications than adults because their organs are younger, he said. Regardless of age, recovering from burns is complicated because it affects every aspect of the body.

"It is the most dramatic injury you can have," Cartie said.

Patients are usually taken to surgery within the first 24 hours so doctors can begin removing burned tissue - a tedious process that tends to take many surgeries, depending on the extent of the burns, said Dr. Fred Mullins, medical director at the Augusta burn center.

Typically, a burned patient will remain in critical condition until all of the burned skin is removed and the body is covered with skin grafts, he said. As a general rule of thumb, Mullins said, a burn patient will stay in the hospital at least one day for every percentage point that his body is burned. In Connor's case, that could mean at least 85 days.

Initially, one of the biggest complications from being burned is swelling, said Cartie. When the body is burned, it tries to fix itself by sending material to the burned area, which results in inflammation. The injury also causes blood vessels and capillaries to leak fluid, compounding the problem, he said.

"This makes for considerable swelling, which can compromise blood circulation and put pressure on organs," Cartie said.

Leaking fluid also causes a patient's blood pressure to drop, so he must be given more fluid - creating a vicious cycle.

"We use so much fluid," Cartie said. "We have to fight to get rid of it."

Because of the almost-daily surgeries, Connor's doctors say he needs a lot of blood, his mother said.

The McKemeys' neighbors are planning a blood drive this month for Connor.

Others trying to help include Jack Sullivan, who is organizing a golf tournament to benefit the McKemey family, He asks that anyone interested contact him as soon as possible. He can be reached by calling 448-7895 or sending an e-mail to tournamentguy7@yahoo.com.

Also, Dream Dinners of Fort Mill has established an account for the family and will provide any meal for six at their cost of $15. to contribute, e-mail the store at I77_hwy160sc@dreamdinners.com or call (803) 675-7833. A meal or two tagged with the donor's name will delivered every Monday to the McKemey home for Conner's grandparents and siblings.

The McKemeys were asked for selections, so donors don't need to worry about what to select when you donate a meal to the family.

Cards and notes for Connor and his family can be taken to Gold Hill Middle School and marked "PTA-McKemey" or mailed to Deb Tucker, 207 Shoreline Parkway, Tega Cay, SC 29708.

This story was originally published January 6, 2009 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Surgeries, skin grafts await Tega Cay burn victim."