"David Carlbom, one of the many doctors who treated Kelly, was on the lookout for this menace. And sure enough, he says, "the day I met him he developed a very high fever, along with shock. Dr. David Carlbom, a critical care pulmonologist at the University of Washington's Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, has used the anti-sepsis treatment Kelly got on 25 other patients so far. Sometimes he's seen what looks like a really rapid response, he says, and sometimes no response. Carlbom is among a few dozen physicians nationwide who have been experimenting with a new treatment for sepsis. Dr.Paul Marik, a brash but well-regarded intensive-care physician at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA., announced this apparently remarkable treatment last year."
"Usually patients are very sick for a few days before responding to antibiotics," Carlbom says. "For [Kelly] it took about a day. His fever had cleared and he was off his vasopressors — the medicines to support his blood pressure — and looked remarkably better."
"In the meantime, Kristopher Kelly is still getting surgeries to mend his injuries and to, as he puts it, reconnect his plumbing. He is well aware that he's had some remarkable good fortune – first in the woods, and later in the hospital.
"In our industry, usually when something like this happens, you don't get the chance to be flown out or anything. That's the end of that," Kelly says. "But I'm lucky."
