Baptist Health Heart & Vascular Care Collaboration – Elizabeth's Story
Elizabeth, age 13, was spending a day with her family outdoors at a park when she took a tumble on her bicycle. Although it is common for a child to fall off a bike every now and then, Elizabeth’s story is anything but routine. Her rare and complicated traumatic injuries stunned her devoted family and inspired a collaborative treatment effort that brought together clinicians from two area healthcare leaders, Nicklaus Children’s and Baptist Health Heart & Vascular Care, part of Baptist Health South Florida.
After the bike fall, Elizabeth experienced such intense abdominal pain that her family was quick to call 911. Upon arrival by ambulance at the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital Emergency Department, doctors soon discovered the accident had ruptured her liver, causing significant blood loss.
Dr. Felipe Pedroso, a pediatric surgeon on the medical staff at Nicklaus Children’s, performed emergency surgery to control the bleeding. Elizabeth also underwent a complex operation to repair her liver, which had split in half as a result of the injury.
A few weeks after recovering from surgery, Elizabeth continued to experience bleeding from her liver and small intestine. Her care team, consisting of Dr. Pedroso, a pediatric surgeon on medical staff at Nicklaus Children’s, and Dr. Leopoldo Malvezzi, pediatric surgeon on medical staff and chief of pediatric surgery, discovered she had developed a pseudoaneurysm, a rare condition in which blood leaking from an artery collects around the surrounding tissue, creating a blood-filled sac.
“This is a type of complication from a trauma injury that anyone, including a child or adult, can unfortunately experience,” said Dr. Pedroso.
The pseudoaneurysm was situated in a difficult-to-treat area near the child’s liver and blood vessels. That’s when a multidisciplinary team comprised of both Nicklaus Children’s pediatric surgery experts and Baptist Health Heart & Vascular Care physicians came together to provide care for Elizabeth’s complicated vascular injury. With the assistance of Dr. Daniel Duarte, Congenital Interventional Cardiologist and Medical Director of Interventional Cardiology at Nicklaus Children’s Heart Institute, and interventional radiologists at Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute Dr. Constantino Pena and Dr. Alex Powell, the team was able to develop a minimally invasive plan to successfully access the vessel and stop the persistent bleeding.
Nicklaus Children’s and Baptist Health South Florida have been collaborating since 2021 to offer extended pediatric care in South Florida. As part of the arrangement, Nicklaus Children’s pediatric specialists offer pediatric emergency care in two Baptist facilities, Baptist Hospital and Homestead. The collaboration between these two leading healthcare organizations has also led to opportunities like that of Elizabeth’s case, where the two organizations have joined forces to help a child in need of complex care.
“While this was an extremely difficult moment for Elizabeth and our family that impacted our outlook on life forever, my best advice to families going through something similar is to trust in your faith and the expertise of your doctors who are dedicated to saving lives every day,” says Edilma, Elizabeth’s mom.
Elizabeth is now fully healed, has officially started 8th grade where she is excelling academically, has joined the dance team at her church and is back to playing her favorite games.