Trauma team works quickly to save girl hurt in snow-tubing accident

Abbagale Jacques is a barrel racing phenom, so talented that she qualified for the World Championships this summer. But the girl from Colleton County, South Carolina, has had to stay out of the saddle since a January snow-tubing accident. Abbagale crashed into a parked trailer, leaving her with life-threatening injuries.

“She had what they considered a polytrauma,” Abbagale’s mother, Ashleigh Murray, said. That means the girl had multiple traumatic injuries. Abbagale was rushed by helicopter from the town of Ruffin, where the accident occurred, to the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital in Charleston.

Pediatric trauma surgeon Laura Hollinger, M.D., was part of the team that met Abbagale as she arrived in the Emergency Department. “She had multiple bone fractures both within her central body as well as her extremities. She had numerous facial fractures and had multiple blunt organ bruises with bleeding on the inside as well as an aortic tear,” the doctor said.

Hollinger described the aortic tear as a rare and severe injury. “This was an immediate threat to life. We do not see blunt aortic injuries like this in the pediatric world very often. I would say that's a particularly unusual injury.” That injury could have killed Abbagale, she added.

Fortunately, Abbagale did survive and was brought to a hospital that not only has pediatric specialists in more than two dozen areas but also collaborates with experts in adult health care. That connection meant Abbagale had immediate access to the MUSC Health Heart and Vascular Center and its surgeons, who have years of experience in treating aortic injuries. 

Ravi Veeraswamy, M.D., chief of Vascular Surgery, described their approach to helping Abbagale. He worked closely with cardiothoracic surgeon Chun Li, M.D., on the next steps. “We were able to go in, put a stent graft and stabilize that area. And we did it with minimally invasive techniques. So she avoided major open surgery,” he said.

Read more about Abbagale's injuries and the life saving treatment she received at MUSC Health and the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital.