Air Date: Thursday, April 17, 2008
Skateboarding accident
A teenage boy loses his voice after a skateboarding accident, leaving doctors puzzled. But thanks to the high-tech imaging equipment at one Boston hospital, the medical mystery was solved.
Justin Ziencina, damaged vocal cord
"My front foot fell off so it popped the board up and it hit me right in the neck."
Justin Ziencina, 16, describes what he thought was just a minor skateboarding accident.
Justin Ziencina, damaged vocal cord
"My voice was really raspy and I couldn't really talk all that great, but I could breathe and everything and I thought I was going to be fine we were supposed to go to the mall, and I was like yeah lets just go to the mall definitely be fine and everything."
But Justin wasn't fine. When the skateboard hit his neck, one of his vocal cords snapped.
Dr. Christopher Hartnick, Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary
"You can see that he didn't actually lose a vocal chord, he literally snapped it like a rubber band out so that we could pull it up back and over to the point where we could give him back his voice."
Dr. Hartnick surgically repaired Justin's vocal cord. He credits the high-tech imaging equipment at MassGeneral Hospital for Children with finding the problem quickly when it could still be fixed.
Dr. Christopher Hartnick, Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary
"One of the nice things about the optics that we have now and the telescopes that we have now is you can see right at first pass that there's something wrong that there's a difference between the left side then the right side."
Justin was in the hospital for nearly three weeks, but now he's back on his skateboard.
Dr. Christopher Hartnick, Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary
"Now his voice is strong and that was really his window of opportunity to get his voice box rebuilt had he not done that during that point in time he never would not have had his voice."
Justin has been skateboarding for about a year and half and even after what he's been through, he says he never considered giving it up.
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