“The allografts are coverings that help the patient regulate their body temperature, ward off infection, and then, of course, they give that patient that covering and time to heal,” Smith said. The skin allografts are used on second- and third-degree burns like in the situation in Maui, and also like in the situation years ago in New Zealand, she said.
Community Tissue Services supplies Straub Hospital in Honolulu with skin allografts. They placed a large order with Community Tissue Services on July 13, prior to the most serious wildfires that took place in early August. Initially 20 patients were treated in Maui, and of those 20, three were serious enough to be transferred to Straub. Grafts from Community Tissue Services were used on those three patients.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
“We are one of two main tissue banks in the U.S. that produce and distribute life-saving skin allografts for burn patients,” Smith said. Their grafts are distributed throughout the U.S., as well as internationally.
On Wednesday, Community Tissue Services learned nine more patients were transferred from Maui to Straub Medical Center in Honolulu. Community Tissue Services has offered to donate additional skin allografts to Straub if needed.
“When you see our skin allografts go out the door, whether it’s to Straub or even if it’s for someone who’s been severely burned at a hospital anywhere in the United States, it just gives mission and purpose in your life. It’s exactly what our goal is to do, (which) is to help others,” Smith said.
Hawaii’s governor says the blaze that burned through the town of Lahaina on Maui last week has killed at least 101 people, as recovery efforts continue. The fire is the deadliest in the U.S. in the past century. It has surpassed the toll of the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, which left 85 dead. A century earlier, the 1918 Cloquet Fire broke out in drought-stricken northern Minnesota and raced through a number of rural communities, killing hundreds and destroying thousands of homes.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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