读者文摘:奇迹生还的男孩(2)（在线收听）

They had to send him somewhere with more advanced imaging equipment—

他们必须要把泽维尔送到一家影像设备更加先进的医院-

Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, about 40 minutes north of the family's home in Harrisonville.

密苏里州堪萨斯城的儿童慈善医院，距离他们在哈里森维尔的家大约40分钟车程。

To prevent Xavier from moving his head, hospital staff put a plastic cervical collar on his neck, and they wrapped his entire head in white gauze to help stabilize the skewer.

为了防止泽维尔移动他的头部，医务人员在他脖子上放了一个塑料颈圈，他们用白纱布包裹了他的整个头部，以帮助固定尖杆。

The only thing left exposed besides that mud-caked metal rod was his mouth.

除了那个粘着泥土的尖杆，唯一露出来的就是他的嘴。

At Children's Mercy, doctors performed a computed tomography (CT) angiogram to see whether the skewer had pierced one of his major blood vessels.

在儿童慈善医院，医生们给他做了计算机断层血管成像检查，以确定尖杆是否刺穿了他的一条主要血管。

They were amazed to find that it had barely missed every vital artery when it penetrated his head.

他们惊奇地发现，刺进了他的头部的尖杆，竟然勉强地漏掉了每一根重要的动脉。

It was like the proverbial threading of a needle, only with life-and-death consequences.

这就像众所周知的穿针引线一样，只是它会带来生或死的后果。

But there was a wrinkle. Metal shows up on CT scans as vivid white, without defined edges.

但有一个问题。在CT扫描中，金属显示为清晰的白色，没有明显的边缘。

If the skewer had any kind of bend, a sharp edge, or a gap, then pulling it out now would be rolling the dice, as it could catch on an artery and rip it open.

如果尖杆有任何弯曲，尖锐的边缘，或缺口，那么现在把它取出来就是后果未知，因为它可以绊住动脉并撕开它。

The only other way to get a clear picture of the skewer was with biplane angiography—a process that gives doctors a crystal clear three-dimensional view inside the vascular system.

唯一能清楚地看到尖杆的另一个方法是用双平面血管造影，这一过程能让医生清楚地看到血管系统内部的三维图像。

It is performed using highly specialized equipment that only some hospitals have.

它需要使用只有某些医院才配有的高度专业化的设备。

One of them, the University of Kansas Hospital, was just five miles away.

五公里外的堪萨斯大学医院就配有这种设备。

An ER doctor got on the phone with KU to describe the case they were about to transfer.

一位急救室的医生打电话给堪萨斯大学医院，向他描述了他们要转院的情况。

It was now around 7:30 p.m. Xavier had been impaled for six hours.

当时已经是下午七点半了，泽维尔已经被刺伤了六个小时了。

Koji Ebersole, MD, an endo-vascular neurosurgeon at KU, was playing tennis when his cell phone rang.

医学博士科吉·埃伯索尔是堪萨斯大学的血管内神经外科医生，电话打过来的时候，他正在打网球。

At the side of the lighted court, he took the call from another KU doctor telling him about a boy who had been impaled by a large metal skewer.

在灯火通明的球场边，科吉接到另一位堪萨斯大学医院医生的电话，被告知一个男孩被一根大金属棒刺穿了。

Dr.Ebersole looked at the photograph from the hospital on his phone. Whoa, he thought. He'd never seen anything like it.

埃伯索尔医生看了看手机上医院发来的照片。哇，他想。他从来没遇到过这样的情况。

The poor boy was lying on a gurney with a huge spike sticking about nine inches out of his face.

这个可怜的男孩躺在轮床上，一根巨大的钉子从他的脸上伸出大约九英寸。