Hadassah to the rescue: Man poisoned by “self-prescribed” supplement
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He bought “Butcher’s Broom” from the internet for his intestinal annoyance
According to advertisements on the internet, Butcher’s Broom is just what a doctor would order for an intestinal annoyance–except that no doctor ever ordered the food additive for the 27-year-old from Israel. He’d ordered this evergreen tree extract from an inexpensive on-line supplier in Bulgaria.
The man took his first dose while at home with his family. When the young man woke up in the middle of the night, his heart was pounding. He was sweating and nauseous. He couldn’t stop throwing up. Not wanting to wake his parents, he managed to phone the emergency ambulance. He could barely lift up the crushed herb to show it to the medic, as he was rushed to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem.
By the time he got to Hadassah, his organs were failing. He had pneumonia in both lungs. “This young man who was strong and healthy a few hours before was close to death,” reports Dr. Sigal Sviri-Saroussi, Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU), which is part of the Internal Medicine Division. “He couldn’t breathe. A tube was inserted in his windpipe and he was transferred to intensive care. But he wasn’t improving and remained in critical condition.” A team of senior doctors decided that his only hope was being attached to an ECMO machine, which is a temporary replacement for a pumping heart and functioning lungs. Such machines are rare in hospitals worldwide and need a highly trained staff to operate them. The medical and nursing teams who can operate Hadassah’s ECMO were called one by one to come to the hospital. The minute the man was attached to the ECMO, life started to return, as oxygenated blood flowed through his body. After several days of life support, he was gradually weaned and his own heart and lungs took over their functions. After a period of rehabilitation, he was able to return home and resume the life he nearly lost.
“We have a wide age range in Internal Medicine,” says Dr. Sviri-Saroussi. “Of course, we have older patients with complex conditions that need to be treated with great care, but there are many younger patients too. For example, a young woman recently contracted life-threatening swine flu. We were able to bring her back to health and strength so that she could come back to us to deliver healthy twins.”
For more than 100 years, Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem (www.hadassah-med.com) has been a leader in medicine and nursing in Israel, laying the foundation and setting the standards for the country’s modern health care system. The majority of medical breakthroughs in Israel have taken place there. With more than 130 departments and clinics, Hadassah-Ein Kerem provides Israel’s most advanced diagnostic and therapeutic services for the local and national population and a significant number of international patients.
