Trauma doctors operating on the miracle mom impaled on a 15-foot-long fence pole had to send for an FDNY rescue team to help them perform emergency surgery.
Rescue workers had rushed to Utica Avenue and Avenue J in Brooklyn earlier Wednesday to cut part of the 11/4-inch-thick pole that had been thrust through Sherland Chandler-Torres' chest in a horrific auto accident.
But a 10-inch hunk of the pipe-like fence rail was still sticking out of her back, and 2 inches ? with a jagged coupling on the end ? were protruding from her chest when she arrived at Kings County Hospital.
"The doctors needed a smooth surface" so they could slide the pole out of her body without catching an artery, said Fire Capt. Philip Ruvolo.
The fencing had grazed the heart, torn the left lung and shattered two ribs of the 35-year-old Queens mother of six.
After consulting hospital trauma chief Dr. Josh Burrack, Ruvolo and Rescue 2 members Sam Melisi and Michael Brady strategized over how to cut the pole from Chandler-Torres' back.
"We elected to use a portable band saw," Ruvolo said. "It doesn't vibrate or oscillate the pipe, there are no sparks and it doesn't generate heat."
Brady, 37, held onto the 2-inch section of fencing protruding from the patient's chest, while Ruvolo, 49, steadied the back section and Melisi, 46, wielded the saw.
The patient's husband, Anthony Torres of Jamaica, had high praise for the delicate half-hour procedure. "I've got to hand it to them, they saved her life," he said.
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