By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Bruce Trout recalls little about the morning his efforts as a Good Samaritan turned very, very bad. He has just one memory that lingers.
“I remember looking down at my legs and seeing the paramedic cutting my pant leg off furiously,” said Trout, of Bowling Green. “I remember saying to him, ‘I’ve got a wife and a baby due in a week – so don’t let me die.’ Then I passed out.”
Earlier that morning on Nov. 22, before the sun was up, Trout was on his way to work at Gordon Lumber in Findlay. He came upon an accident at Ohio 25 and U.S. 6, on the south edge of Bowling Green. One vehicle was upside down in the median.
“If it was just a fender bender, I probably wouldn’t have stopped,” he said.
Trout, 32, checked on the driver, who was not injured. But a northbound driver, who was trying to avoid a stopped car, failed to see Trout and Morgan Boggs, another Good Samaritan on the scene.
Both Trout and Boggs were struck, though Boggs avoided serious injury. Upon seeing Trout’s severed leg, Boggs, an EMT in North Baltimore, used another bystander’s belt as a tourniquet.
The makeshift tourniquet couldn’t create enough pressure to stop the bleeding, so Bowling Green Police Officer Tyson Richman used a tourniquet that all BG officers are equipped with.
“I would have died there if Morgan didn’t help me,” Trout said. “I woke up in the ambulance.”
Meanwhile, Trout’s wife, Andrea, had been trying to call him and sensed that something was wrong. She was one week away from the due date for their first child.
When the deputies came to her house, Andrea Trout feared the worst.
“He assured me he was alive,” she said of the deputy.
But the deputy later acknowledged he wasn’t sure if Bruce Trout would make it.
Surgeries begin to save Trout’s life and leg
Trout was taken by air ambulance to Promedica Hospital in Toledo, where he was placed in a medically-induced coma for eight days. His left upper leg had been sliced to the bone, severing the femoral artery. In all, he lost 12 units of blood.
“I lost all the blood in my body,” he said.
One of the orthopedic surgeons told Trout how close he was to death.
“He said, ‘You had three lacerations on your left leg – any one of them should have killed you,’” Trout said.
While he was in the coma, surgeons had to amputate his foot which was infected and gray from no blood circulation.
“I was weirdly calm about having my foot missing,” Trout recalled.
It was a fight to save more of Trout’s leg. In the first couple weeks in the hospital, he had six or seven surgeries.
“I lost count, honestly,” Andrea Trout said.
Surgeons prepared Andrea that they may have to amputate above the hip – making a regular prosthetic impossible. But the amputations finally stopped about 3 inches below his knee.
“It was a rollercoaster. The next surgery, he went in and they were amazed,” Andrea Trout said. Instead of gray and dying, his leg tissue was “nice and pink.”
While many may see Trout’s situation as tragic, he views it differently.
“All things considered, I was as lucky as I could get,” he said, recalling all the pieces that had to fall into place for his life to be saved.
“It was really serendipitous,” Trout said. “Somehow I’ve made it through ridiculous odds.”
“You won the lottery,” Andrea said. “He definitely had someone looking out for him.”
And then there were three
While Trout was on the trauma floor of the hospital, his wife moved into the maternity ward two floors above. More serendipity – the couple had planned to have their baby at Promedica.
“The Sunday before I got hit, we took the maternity tour,” he said.
On the baby’s due date, a physician suggested that Andrea be induced because her husband was set for another surgery in a couple days.
Trout was delayed in getting to maternity because he needed a blood transfusion. But with a team of hospital staff determined to make it happen, Trout arrived in time for baby Everly Mae to appear on Dec. 3.
“They wheeled me down. I saw every push,” he said. “I got to hold her (Andrea’s) hand. I got to cut the umbilical cord.”
Despite concerns about infections, the couple was given a few minutes of family time with little Everly, weighing 5 pounds, 13 ounces.
“It was weird. We were side by side in matching hospital gowns,” Andrea said.
When his wife and baby were released from the hospital, Trout had to remain for nearly a month more. He has tolerated most of the treatment, though conceded that the wound cleaning was initially “brutal” since he had exposed nerves.
The worst agony has come from “phantom limb pain.”
“It was excruciating,” he said. “It was agonizing. It would go on for hours.”
But Trout has been comforted by the knowledge that most people with lost limbs stop experiencing “phantom” pain.
Coming home to heal
Trout was allowed to come home to Bowling Green on Jan. 2. Since then, his body has continued to heal.
“I move around probably more than she would like,” he said, glancing at Andrea.
“I just want him to sit down,” she said with a smile.
The other day when Andrea returned home from work as a stylist at Ambrosia Salon in Bowling Green, her husband had done the laundry. That entailed him sliding down the steps on his behind to the basement.
Earlier this week, Trout drove to the grocery store.
“I felt like things are back to normal,” Andrea said. “Little victories.”
Trout agreed. “It’s cheesy, but that’s how it is.”
The surgeries are done for now, though the Trouts are meeting with a plastic surgeon on Friday about skin grafts for other leg wounds.
Trout was initially told it might be a year before he has healed enough to be fitted for a prosthetic leg. However, his healing has been so rapid, that the timeline for the prosthesis has moved up to six months. He uses a walker now, but plans to graduate to crutches soon.
“He’s making great progress,” said Andrea Trout, who had a crash course in amputations. “I feel like I’m a nurse now.”
Wrapped in love and support
When the crash occurred, family friend Brooke Amos did what she could to help – by starting a Go Fund Me page for the Trouts.
The couple’s story resonated with people. The funding goal started out at $10,000. That was surpassed in the first hour. It kept growing – with the last tally at $55,636.
“The number is so insane,” Trout said.
Money came in from 790 donors from as far away as Idaho.
“Most of them were people we didn’t know,” Andrea Trout said.
The support didn’t stop there. Strangers started dropping off items at the Trouts’ home – baby clothes, diapers and other necessities.
“I would cry every time I got something,” she said. “We feel loved.”
Trout has medical insurance through his work, and oddly, he had been paying for “lost limb insurance.”
“He didn’t know it. He just found out,” Andrea said.
“I don’t remember checking that box,” her husband said with a grin.
A truly good Good Samaritan
The fateful crash in November was not Trout’s first time to stop for motorists in need. He helped a trucker whose semi trailer tipped over in heavy winds. And he stopped to aid a woman who fell asleep and hit a tree.
“He is that kind of guy – don’t let him tell you anything else,” Andrea said.
“I think we all inherently know what’s the right thing to do. When we can help, we should do it,” Bruce Trout said.
