Dante White of Baldwin meets Mount Sinai South Nassau team who 'saved my life'
Dante White, 21 of Baldwin, center in blue, with his mother, Theresa, to his immediate left, his father, Wayne, right, and trauma surgeon Bianca Redhead, far left, on Tuesday at Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in Oceanside. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
Dante White, 21, had just finished a 30-minute run through his Baldwin neighborhood in March when he reached out his right arm to stop a car speeding toward him and braced for being hit.
Officials said the 2017 Nissan Altima ran through a stop sign March 10, striking White and sending his arm through the windshield, severing an artery and throwing him more than 20 feet.
After seven surgeries at Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside and at Mount Sinai’s main hospital in Manhattan, White is back running and home for Thanksgiving. A track athlete at the University of New Haven, he will compete next month in his first race since the crash.
On Tuesday, White and his parents met the doctors, nurses and paramedics who saved him, reuniting for the first time since complicated vascular and orthopedic surgery to stop the bleeding.
"They saved my life," White said at the Oceanside hospital with doctors and nurses involved in his treatment.
"I for sure would have died," he added. "I was five minutes away from dying."
White had gone for his usual run, just before noon, when he approached the intersection of Forest Avenue and Clyde Road. He said he checked that the road was clear before he crossed the street and caught a glimpse of the oncoming car.
"It was a regular day. It was like any other day," White said. "I saw the car coming in my peripherals for a split second. Then I jumped over the car, like over the hood, and my arm went straight through the windshield."
A Nassau County police officer arrived and found White unconscious. The officer used a combat gauze to try to stem the bleeding before paramedics arrived. He was unable to apply a tourniquet because the wound was to White's right armpit.
White awoke in the ambulance with amnesia, asking what happened. White's blood pressure dropped too low to administer painkillers and he then went into shock, said Jose Piniero, an Oceanside Fire District supervising paramedic who attended Tuesday's hospital gathering and treated White at the scene in March.
Once White arrived at Mount Sinai South Nassau, doctors and nurses applied pressure under his arm, the first step in the difficult process of reconstructing the severed artery, said Dr. James Maurer, trauma medical director at the hospital. During the surgery, White was given a transfusion of seven bags of blood.
"He came to the hospital in a profound hemorrhaging and shock. He was assessed and pretty quickly taken up to the OR," Maurer said. "I think the whole time his life was at risk. ... It’s a tribute to being young and all the people who came and took care of him."
Surgeons were able to place a stent under White’s arm to reconstruct the artery through a bypass using a vein graft from his leg to connect to another artery, said Dr. Bianca Redhead, a trauma critical care surgeon. At the same time, an orthopedic surgeon worked to repair White’s dislocated shoulder.
White underwent another surgery to remove a clot that had formed in the stent and another procedure to his right forearm to make sure his muscles remained intact and save his arm, said Dr. Charles Sticco, a vascular surgeon who treated White.
"The artery repaired saved his arm, and the nerve repair is still healing," Sticco said. "It's an attempt to save the function of his arm."
White spent 10 days at the hospital in Oceanside and another 10 days at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. He said he slowly began to remember the crash and said glass damaged the nerves in his arm, which required nerve transfers.
He still wears a large brace on his hand, where he has slight movement and hopes to regain full function in another year.
Nurses said while White was being treated, he said he couldn’t feel his hand and asked for his mother. He described himself as "a mama’s boy."
"I’m just happy he’s alive and we thank everyone on the team that helped him," said White's mother, Theresa White.
White's father, also at the hospital Tuesday, thanked the medical staff and first responders.
"It’s wonderful to have him home, " Wayne White said of his youngest son. "He’s everything to me."
John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.
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