A 15-year-old Queenstowner’s recovering from life-saving abdominal surgery following a freak mountain bike accident.
Taking a big jump at Queenstown’s Wynyard Jump Park, on May 31, Jasper Dorn landed on his bike’s back tyre, which somehow pierced his abdomen.
‘‘I thought I was just winded at first,’’ he says.
‘‘It was painful but it didn’t feel like it was enough to damage anything properly.’’
A friend called an ambulance, and after being seen at Lakes District Hospital, he was advised to go to Southland Hospital to check the extent of any damage.
He had an MRI scan, and as soon it was found his pancreas had split in half, he was helicoptered at midnight, two nights later, to Dunedin Hospital, with his mum, Sandi Murphy, also onboard.
Next morning, King’s Birthday, pancreatic surgeon Dr Nick Fischer, who was called in on his day off, performed an emergency six-hour operation.
Importantly, during the op, Fischer saved Jasper’s spleen — ‘‘according to the nurses, that wouldn’t have been possible if I had a different surgeon’’, Jasper says.
He lost the body and tail of his pancreas, but the head remained.
That could have seen him become a Type 1 diabetic, not be able to produce enough digestive enzymes to break down fats and other things, and have to take digestive pills for the rest of his life.
However, Murphy says, ‘‘the head of his pancreas is doing a fantastic job of producing enough insulin and enough enzymes that at the moment he’s got no dependency needs’’.
Jasper was in ICU for the first four or five days — ‘‘we were very impressed by the nurses and doctors’’, Murphy says — and altogether spent 17 days in hospital.
That was due to a couple of post-operative complications and the need to wait for test results.
For the first week-and-a-half he also couldn’t eat, and lost about 10kg.
Murphy and her separated husband, Greg Dorn, took turns sleeping with him in the hospital room.
Jasper, who’s sporting a long abdominal scar like a shark bite, says ‘‘from what [Fischer] said before we went into the operation, it was likely to go a lot worse — we were pretty lucky with everything’’.
And despite the trauma, he’s still keen to get back in the saddle.
‘‘It’s one of those things,’’ Murphy says.
‘‘I think it’s a higher-risk sport, for sure, we knew that — I mean, every day he went out I was like, ‘please be mindful’, you know.
‘‘But what can you do?
‘‘This is his passion, this is his love, and we’re living in high-octane Queenstown.’’
She adds: ‘‘Family and friends and the wider community have certainly poured their love and support during this process, and we’re very grateful for that.
‘‘It’s a great story for Jasper to tell, and he’s got his life to tell it from so, yeah, it’s amazing.’’
Having only been discharged from hospital early last week, Jasper, a Wakatipu High year 11 student, finally returned to school this week.
