Do We Try to Salvage Too Many Traumatic Limb Injuries with Reconstruction and Flaps when We Should Be Doing More Amputations?

HISTORY – A 24-year-old male was on a motorcycle when he laid his bike down trying to avoid a deer on the road. He hit the pavement at 100km/h. He was not injured other than his L leg, but it was badly damaged, and he was packaged up by the EMTs and was taken to the Emergency unit. At the nearest trauma center, he was found to have no injuries except to his L leg. He could not feel the bottom of his L foot. He had some sensation on the dorsum of his foot and movement to his 4 small toes. He had no pulses except with Doppler over the anterior tibial vessel with no other pulses found and the foot was coolish and mildly blue.