Shark Victim Suffers Setback

ByABC News
July 16, 2001, 8:12 AM

P E N S A C O L A , Fla., July 16 -- The 8-year-old boy whose arm was reattached after it was ripped off by a shark suffered a slight setback today when internal bleeding postponed scheduled skin graft surgery, doctors said.

Doctors said they were not surprised by the bleeding because of the type of injuries Jessie Arbogast suffered when a shark attacked him at the Gulf Islands National Seashore on July 6. Jessie's uncle managed to rescue him, drag the shark back to shore and pry the boy's severed arm from the shark's gullet. Doctors surgically reattached the arm.

Jessie received two units of blood today to counteract gastrointestinal bleeding that began early this morning, his doctors said. However, they added, Jessie is responding well, despite the setback.

"We've given him two units of blood as a preemptive measure, and he is responding well to medications," said Dr. Bob Patterson, one of Jessie's doctors at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital in Pensacola. "We've also backed off the tube feeding for now."

Last week, doctors began feeding Jessie through a feeding tube, but today's development forced them to return to intravenous lines. Today, Jessie was supposed to undergo follow-up skin grafting surgery for his injuries but that has been postponed because of the bleeding.

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Jessie remains in critical but stable condition. Earlier today, doctors said the boy's brain may not have been damaged from blood loss after the shark attack, and that he might be able to go home soon. He lives in Ocean Springs, Miss.

"Now that he's off the ventilator, [and] as soon as he's out of critical condition he can potentially go home," Dr. Juliet De Campos, another of his doctors, told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.

But doctors also stressed that it will be some time before they know for sure whether Jessie suffered brain damage. Jessie "doesn't have any significant brain swelling and he may have a chance for normal brain survival," De Campos said. "But he has not woken up yet to the extent that we can tell whether or not he'll have any residual effects from it."