You see nine of them standing in a U around her, and once the doors to that trauma bay shut, your heart just goes boom. CASEY MCCOMMON, HALEY’S MOM “He told me he’d stay with me and he wouldn’t leave me all alone.” It was Zack Witcher, and he kept his promise, keeping Haley calm until her mom Casey arrived just in time to see her daughter wheeled into surgery: “You see nine of them standing in a U around her, and once the doors to that trauma bay shut, your heart just goes boom,” Casey said. What Casey and Haley would discover, though, is the trauma team understands that feeling and goes out of their way to comfort patient and family. They would come to refer to them as “Haley’s Dream Team;” Witcher and fellow trauma nurse Joey Omedeo, anesthesiologists Jerry Jones, MD and Blas Catalani, MD, and others who were at Haley’s side for her entire journey. Haley met Dr. Jones, director of the Acute Pain Service, three days in. She was on morphine and was struggling with pain, nausea and an opioid haze. “He took one look at me and said, ‘You’re done with this,’” she recalls. Dr. Jones used continuous peripheral nerve blocks, a procedure he has pioneered to get patients through the acute pain period with few or no Casey McCommon, Dr. Jerry Jones, Haley McCommon and trauma nurse Joey Omedeo will forever share a bond thanks to the compassionate care Haley received at Regional One Health. Haley and Casey call Dr. Jones, Omedeo and others at the hospital “Haley’s Dream Team.” 34 Regional One Health Foundation
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