R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center Honors More Than 80 Trauma Professionals, First Responders Who Saved the Lives of Two Critically Injured Patients

The R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) hosted its 34^th annual Shock Trauma Heroes Celebration tonight, honoring more than 80 trauma professionals and first responders who provided lifesaving care to two critically injured patients.

Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) Sgt. Patrick Kepp lost both of his legs after being struck by a car traveling more than 100 miles an hour on I-270 in Gaithersburg a year ago. Police say the 19-year-old driver intentionally struck Kepp as he attempted to stop the teenager’s car.

A Frederick County farmer, Zene Wolfe, was badly hurt when he was pinned in a skid loader while moving bales of hay for his Black Angus cows and calves on Nov. 21, 2022. Wolfe’s pelvis was crushed, and he sustained major, difficult-to-repair injuries to his bladder and rectum. Doctors weren’t sure he would be able to walk again.

The celebration’s theme, “One Maryland, One Shock Trauma,” highlights the extraordinary collaboration between Shock Trauma and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) partners throughout the state. Shock Trauma is at the center of the unique, highly coordinated statewide system – a national model for trauma care. This event raises important philanthropic support to help fund vital programs and initiatives at Shock Trauma, one of the world’s leading trauma centers.

“Every day, our extraordinary trauma teams employ groundbreaking research and innovative medical procedures that translate into lives saved. The world-class care that is delivered is evident by the fact that approximately 95% of all patients who make it to Shock Trauma survive,” said Thomas M. Scalea, MD, Shock Trauma’s Physician-in-Chief and the Honorable Francis X. Kelly Distinguished Professor of Trauma Surgery and Director of the Program in Trauma at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).

“No one plans to come to Shock Trauma. Each patient is a victim of an unscheduled tragedy, and every situation is unique. We never know what medical emergency we will face, but we are always ready no matter the circumstance,” Dr. Scalea, who is also System Chief of Critical Care Services for the 11-hospital University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), said.

Shock Trauma has the highest designation for trauma care in the state as a Primary Adult Resource Center (PARC). Doctors there treat 6,500 critically ill and severely injured patients each year.

This year’s Heroes Celebration was held from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. at the Weinman Hall, M&T Bank Exchange and the Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center in Baltimore.

The proceeds from the event will help to advance critical initiatives at Shock Trauma, focusing on core services of trauma prevention, violence intervention research, and education and training.

“We are extremely grateful for the tremendous support we receive every year from local businesses, organizations and individuals throughout Maryland that enables us to fulfill our mission of saving lives and fostering a safer, healthier community. We couldn’t do what we do every day without our highly skilled, reliable EMS partners,” Kristie Snedeker, DPT, Shock Trauma’s Vice President, said.

“This year, we also thank Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland General Assembly for increasing our annual funding to ensure that our world-class trauma care system is preserved for the future. The need was great, and our lawmakers once again stood up to say that saving lives is important to the people of Maryland,” Snedeker added.

Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals at Shock Trauma were honored along with heroes from the Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service, Washington County EMS, Frederick County EMS and Trooper 3 of the Maryland State Police Aviation Command. For the first time, a therapy dog, Remy, who visited Sergeant Kepp, was recognized as a hero.

Also honored at tonight’s celebration was U.S. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-2^nd-Md., a longtime Shock Trauma supporter and vice chairman of its Board of Visitors, who is retiring after serving 21 years in Congress. Ruppersberger credits the trauma center with saving his life in 1975 after he was severely injured in a car crash.

“I’ve been hit’

Kepp, a sergeant in the MCPD Alcohol Initiatives Unit, was struck by a speeding car in the early morning hours of October 18, 2023 on I-270 at Watkins Mill Road near Exit 13. He was preparing to lay down ‘stop sticks’ to try to stop the car by deflating its tires. “He was going to kill somebody, himself or someone else, if he wasn’t stopped,” Sgt. Kepp said of the teenage driver who he had encountered before.

He said that he saw the car change course and come right at him, striking with such force that his right leg was torn off completely and his left leg was held on by a section of skin. His foot was discovered 150 yards away. The 36-year-old sergeant managed to radio for help: “Nine whiskey 10. I’ve been hit. I need Fire and Rescue. I’m at Watkins Mill Road. Please send ASAP.”

Two fellow Montgomery County police officers arrived first and within seconds applied tourniquets to prevent Kepp from bleeding to death. These officers “saved his life, hands down,” said TFC Lance Shank, a Maryland State Police flight paramedic who cared for Kepp during the helicopter flight to Shock Trauma. Kepp’s legs were so badly mangled that doctors decided to amputate them.

Kepp spent 51 days at Shock Trauma, undergoing 10 surgeries and enduring multiple setbacks. “Pat is one of the most motivated and resilient people that I think I have ever come across,” said Pooja Bhatnagar, MS, OTR/L, a psychiatric occupational therapist. After he was discharged, Kepp went to the Walter Reed National Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda for rehabilitation – thanks to the efforts of U.S. Rep. David Trone, D-6^th-Md, who secured a special health care designation from the U.S. Secretary of Defense for Kepp to be treated at the military hospital.

The police sergeant has been fitted with prosthetic legs and is walking again – even running on blades. He has returned to work and hopes to resume duty in the field soon. He also hopes to return to officiating NCAA Division 1 FCS football games as a line judge. He believes he would be the first double amputee to take on that role.

“The care at Shock Trauma is second to none. Every nurse and tech and obviously the doctors went above and beyond,” Kepp said. “The whole continuity of care, from my officers that were there all the way through Shock Trauma to Walter Reed, it’s just been incredible.”

‘I’m going to die’

Wolfe, 61, recalls the day in November 2022 when he was using a skid loader to move bales of hay at his farm, Laurelane Angus Farm, in Myersville, Md. He had slid out of the seat to remove netting from a bale and accidentally hit a control lever that lowered the loader’s arms, crushing his pelvis between the arms and the main part of the machine. He managed to raise the loader and wriggle his way out before collapsing.

His wife, Sara, found him and called 911. “He just was crying and said, “I’m really sorry. I going to die. I’m going to die.” When paramedics arrived, he was in excruciating pain, and they stabilized his pelvis before he was transported by Maryland State Police helicopter to Shock Trauma. “He was awake but had a pelvic binder on that’s always a worry for us,” said David T. Efron, MD, Shock Trauma’s Chief of Trauma and Medical Director and the Thomas M. Scalea MD Distinguished Professor of Trauma at UMSOM. “The biggest thing that we are concerned about is massive bleeding.”

Doctors used an external fixator with rods, bars and screws to stabilize Wolfe’s fractured pelvis. He also had very serious injuries to his bladder and urethra as well as his rectum, which required doctors to perform a colostomy.

“In every life, a little rain’s going to fall. And sometimes you get hit with a downpour and sometimes you get hit with a tsunami, and unfortunately for Mr. Wolfe, he got hit with a double tsunami,” said David Milzman, MD, an attending Shock Trauma physician and a Professor of Emergency Medicine at UMSOM. Wolfe spent 6 ½ weeks at Shock Trauma, and doctors were able to reconstruct his urethra and reverse his colostomy.

“I am 90 percent back to normal. I’m at what Dr. Efron would say is my new normal, which I can’t complain about one iota,” Wolfe said. He said of his stay at Shock Trauma, “It’s a team effort and all the nurses, the techs, the people who cleaned my room, everybody. It wasn’t like I was a job. I was a person.”

“We’re both looking forward to a bright future, living on the farm,” his wife Sara said.

Dr. Scalea praised Maryland’s well-oiled EMS system that offers expert care to patients with traumatic injuries throughout the state. “Those of us who live in the state of Maryland are incredibly blessed to have the most sophisticated prehospital care system anywhere in the country, maybe anywhere in the world. And then a trauma system that gets it right – right person, right place, right amount of time,” he said. “One Maryland, One Shock Trauma. It’s our motto. It’s how we do things every day.”

UMMC is the academic flagship hospital for the University of Maryland Medical System.

About the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center

The R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, University of Maryland was the first fully integrated trauma center in the world and remains at the epicenter for trauma research, patient care and teaching, both nationally and internationally today. Shock Trauma is where the "golden hour" concept of trauma was born and where many lifesaving practices in modern trauma medicine were pioneered. Shock Trauma is also at the heart of the Maryland's unparalleled Emergency Medical Service System. Learn more about Shock Trauma.

About the University of Maryland Medical Center

The University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) is comprised of two hospital campuses in Baltimore: the 800-bed flagship institution of the 11-hospital University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) and the 200-bed UMMC Midtown Campus. Both campuses are academic medical centers for training physicians and health professionals and for pursuing research and innovation to improve health. UMMC's downtown campus is a national and regional referral center for trauma, cancer care, neurosciences, advanced cardiovascular care, and women's and children's health, and has one of the largest solid organ transplant programs in the country. All physicians on staff at the downtown campus are clinical faculty physicians of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. The UMMC Midtown Campus medical staff is predominately faculty physicians specializing in a wide spectrum of medical and surgical subspecialties, primary care for adults and children and behavioral health. UMMC Midtown has been a teaching hospital for 140 years and is located one mile away from the downtown campus. For more information, visit www.umm.edu.

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 46 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs, and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished two-time winner of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research.  With an operating budget of more than $1.2 billion, the School of Medicine works closely in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide research-intensive, academic and clinically based care for nearly 2 million patients each year. The School of Medicine has nearly $600 million in extramural funding, with most of its academic departments highly ranked among all medical schools in the nation in research funding.  As one of the seven professional schools that make up the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine has a total population of nearly 9,000 faculty and staff, including 2,500 students, trainees, residents, and fellows. The combined School of Medicine and Medical System (“University of Maryland Medicine”) has an annual budget of over $6 billion and an economic impact of nearly $20 billion on the state and local community. The School of Medicine, which ranks as the 8th highest among public medical schools in research productivity (according to the Association of American Medical Colleges profile) is an innovator in translational medicine, with 606 active patents and 52 start-up companies.  In the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the Best Medical Schools, published in 2023, the UM School of Medicine is ranked #10 among the 92 public medical schools in the U.S., and in the top 16 percent (#32) of all 192 public and private U.S. medical schools. The School of Medicine works locally, nationally, and globally, with research and treatment facilities in 36 countries around the world. Visit medschool.umaryland.edu

About the University of Maryland Medical System

The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) is an academic, private health system, focused on delivering compassionate, high-quality care and putting discovery and innovation into practice at the bedside. Partnering with the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Maryland, Baltimore, who educate the state’s future health care professionals. UMMS is an integrated network of care, delivering 25 percent of all hospital care in urban, suburban and rural communities across the state of Maryland. UMMS puts academic medicine within reach through primary and specialty care delivered at 11 hospitals, including the flagship University of Maryland Medical Center, the System’s anchor institution in downtown Baltimore, as well as through a network of University of Maryland Urgent Care centers and more than 150 other locations in 13 counties. For more information, visit www.umms.org.