The 16-year-old was severely injured when a bull stepped on his chest during the State District 6 High School Rodeo Tournament in Burley. After Wyatt was transported by air ambulance to Portneuf Medical Center in Pocatello, he flatlined.
”[The doctors] said they lost me three times,” the young bull rider from Burley said.
That’s when surgeons made the decision to perform an emergency department thoracotomy, in which Wyatt’s chest was surgically cut open so Jorge Amorim could stop the ruptured left lung from bleeding and massage the heart with his hands.
According to Drew McRoberts, the trauma director at PMC, an emergency department thoracotomy is performed in life-and-death situations.