In early June, six-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Amy Van Dyken-Rouen was involved in an ATV accident that broke her spine and severed her spinal cord. Neurosurgeon Luis Manuel Tumialan, MD, performed successful surgery on the former Olympian. Here are five things to know about the incident.
1. Amy Van Dyken-Rouen was the first American woman to win four Olympic gold medals, which she did at the Olympics head in Atlanta in 1996. She won two more gold medals in Sydney, Australia in 2000. She is married to former Denver Broncos punter Tom Rouen. Ms. Van Dyken-Rouen was injured when she went over a curb in an ATV, on the other side of which was an approximately 6-foot drop, according to a report from Breitbart.
2. Ms. Van Dyken-Rouen severed her spinal cord at the T11 vertebra, and broken vertebra were close to rupturing her aorta, according to a report from the Arizona Republic. She recently released her X-rays from the incident. She became paralyzed from the waist down after the accident, she revealed in an USA Today interview.
3. Dr. Tumialan is an Arizona neurosurgeon with privileges at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center and Scottsdale (Ariz.) Healthcare-Osborn Medical Center. He is also a physician with Barrow Neurosurgical Associates, a medical group practice headquartered in Phoenix. He holds a medical degree from the Georgetown University School of Medicine, completed an internship in neurosurgery at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Calif., and completed a fellowship in neurosurgery at the Emory University School of Medicine.
4. Dr. Tumialan performed surgery on Ms. Van Dyken-Rouen June 7 at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center. The operation lasted six hours, during which Dr. Tumialan and his team inserted rods into the Olympian's spine and performed a fusion. The risk of vascular injury and cerebrospinal fluid leak made the surgery extremely risky, according to a report from USA Today.
5. Ms. Van Dyken Rouen will complete her rehabilitation at Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo. Whether she regains feeling after her operation remains to be seen, according to a report.
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