Jul 5, 2006 5:54 pm US/Mountain
Egypt Bombing Blast Victim Recovers In Denver
by Jim Benemann
DENVER (CBS4) ―
A Wyoming man badly injured in a April 24 bombing in Egypt is recovering at a Denver hospital.
Bruce Lamberson, his daughter Betsy Lamberson and her husband Tom South were all caught in the terrorist blasts on a street of the resort town of Dahab.
"Twenty three people died all around us," Lamberson said. "We were very, very lucky."
Thanks to a ride from the FBI, Bruce Lamberson and his family were able to get away from the scene. He finally wound up at Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital and the Denver Clinic for Extremities at Risk.
Betsy Lamberson had flesh wounds on the backs of her legs and her husband's arm was badly damaged. Both were treated at Denver Health Medical Center. She has been released and South is still hospitalized.
Lamberson was the most seriously injured. His rescuers put him in the back of a pickup truck and drove him four hours across bumpy roads to the nearest hospital, with his foot barely attached.
"You know my foot was hanging off and ... I'm thinking that thing's gone," said Lamberson of the thoughts he had on that ride.
When Lamberson arrived in Denver, he was taken to Presbyterian St. Luke's. That's where Lamberson met Dr. David Hahn, just one of the doctors on the team that has rebuilt Lamberson's lower leg and ankle.
It was an injury with which Hahn was familiar.
"We would see these back during the Vietnam War when they would be transported to Fitzsimons," he explained.
The first order of business for treating Lamberson was to get a massive infection under control. It took 6 weeks of intravenous antibiotics. The wound also had to be covered.
Doctors used a flap of skin, muscle and arteries from Lamberson's back to cover the wound. Doctors also broke Lamberson's leg near the knee to allow the use of a device called the external fixitor, a device helps bone growth.
"It heals down here by squeezing it together and the healthy bone up here is made on its own," Hahn said about the device.
Lamberson must continually adjust the device so the healing continues.
As an ultra-marthoner, Lamberson knows a bit about endurance. That endurance will be tested in a recovery that is expected to take at least a year.
His wife Cindy was not hurt in the bombing and said the family will help in the recovery as well.
"We're a strong family in the time of need and this reminds us how strong our relations are and how deep they run," she said.
For Bruce, the bombing brought more than injury and pain. It brought a renewed lesson on generosity.
"We've had nothing but wonderful people around the world, everywhere we've gone," Lamberson said. "The Army troops ... everybody."
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