Despite a traumatic injury, one patient feels 'thankful'

Photo of Wound Care patient, Eve White

Did you know that South LA is home to a state-of-the-art Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Therapy Center? At MLK Community Healthcare, we use advanced therapies to help our patients recover from even the most serious injury. Patients like Eve White, who suffered a dog bite so severe she might have lost a leg. Instead, with the help of her caring clinic team, including podiatrists and vascular surgeons, she’s rapidly recovering and on the road back to being an active jujitsu instructor.

"Since I’ve been at the wound clinic they’ve been so professional, so helpful, so friendly," White says. "I'm thankful they were there to help me out at my moment of need."

Do you have a wound that’s not healing?  Book an appointment with us today: https://www.mlkch.org/wound-care

This was not just a dog bite. It was an attack so severe it ripped out a huge chunk of calf muscle and nerves and put Eve White, a patient at MLK Community Healthcare, at risk of an amputation.

White – a martial arts instructor who relied on her strong legs to practice her profession, as well as to tend to her special needs daughter, was terrified.

"This injury was so traumatizing," White says, of the dog bite that occurred this past April. "This is our leg – it's not like our hair. It's not going to grow back."

The skin around severe wounds often atrophies and dies. Without proper care, it can get infected. It takes specialized care to not only prevent that from happening but to bring a patient back to where they were before the injury – in White's case, doing jujitsu’s high-kicks and rolls.

Thankfully, White had a unique South LA resource at her disposal: the MLK Community Healthcare Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Therapy Center, a state-of-the-art clinic devoted to the healing of stubborn, even life-threatening wounds.

The Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Therapy Center is the only one of its kind in South LA. It features hyperbaric chambers – high-tech equipment that pumps oxygen to injured tissue, speeding the recovery of even the hardest-to-heal wounds.

Working with a specialized care team, including podiatrists and vascular surgeons, White saw almost immediate improvement, as the jagged edges of the three-inch wound slowly closed and dead skin was replaced by healthy new flesh.

Not just White's body, but her spirit, was renewed.  White says she was depressed when she first went to the Center – "I felt like I was going to die."

But her doctors and nurses are "so professional, so helpful, so friendly," she says. "They calmed me down and made me feel good. They were very supportive."

Looking back, White says that though she wouldn't wish this type of injury on anyone, she nevertheless feels lucky.

"It's never a good thing to be bit by a dog but if it's going to happen than the fact that we have a new Wound Healing Center in South LA? That's perfect timing," she says. "I'm so thankful it was there to help me out at my moment of need."

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