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Anne Shelly Baumgarten's Orthopaedic Hospital Story
Story written by Bruce Shelly, father of Anne
Year of Involvement: 1971
Reason for Involvement: Daughter, Anne, was a patient.
On the night of July 22, 1971 Anne Shelly, nine days before her sixteenth birthday, arrived at Orthopaedic Hospital in an ambulance which had raced from Van Nuys Receiving Hospital. More than an hour before, her left arm had been completely severed from her body four inches below her shoulder by an airplane propeller.
The paramedic firemen who stopped her near-death bleeding on the Van Nuys Airport tarmac had packed the arm in ice and one of the ambulance attendants carried it into the Orthopaedic Hospital Emergency Room. By midnight Dr. William Rieder and Dr. Stuart Hodash began a six-hour effort to re-attach Anne's arm to her body.
The following Saturday morning the two-inch-high front page banner headline in the Los Angeles Times proclaimed "ARM SEWN BACK". The "miracle story" was carried throughout the world and reported as one of the very first full arm re-implantments ever achieved.
The operation has continued to be a spectacular success.
After five weeks in the hospital, Anne went home. The doctors told us it would be at least a year before we would learn if Anne could move her fingers. They began moving in four months. It was early indication that the brilliant surgeons at Orthopaedic had given Anne a full and accomplished life.
In the first months after leaving the hospital, Anne's schooling continued via telephone classroom and she returned to Grant High School for her senior year.
She entered the University of California at Santa Cruz that fall, bussing her cafeteria trays and typing her term papers. Her summer vacation included lugging her suitcase on a six-week tour of Europe. It was at Santa Cruz that she met her husband, John Baumgarten.
Anne and John have two outstanding sons -- 24-year-old Lowen is a Cum Laude graduate of Georgetown and now works in Washington, D.C. His 22-year-old brother, Austin, is a Dean's List student at Santa Clara University.
After Anne's stay at Orthopaedic Hospital her parents continued their involvement here. Nan, Anne's mother, joined the Crippled Children's Guild and volunteered almost every day at the Thrift Shop. She continues to be a sustaining member of the Guild even though a move has taken the Bruce and Nan to Los Gatos.
Anne herself has achieved two Master's Degrees from San Jose State. She is an outstanding teacher, teacher-of-teachers, and student mentor. She has won writing awards, wrote scripts for Disney, and recently collaborated on a psychology textbook. She hikes and swims and dances. She has traveled to China to visit her oldest son on his semester abroad and has a Christmas trip scheduled to Australia and New Zealand. Few people are aware that her near-normal arm has a 360-degree scar near her shoulder.
In the 36 years since her amazing surgery, Anne has enjoyed a rich and fulfilling life. The young students she inspires and her long list of admiring contemporaries -- not to mention her family -- are all grateful for her Orthopaedic Hospital Story.
Thank you to Nan and Bruce Shelly for taking the time to share their story with us. If you have a story you would like to share, please do not hesitate to email Jessica Anderson at jsanderson@laoh.ucla.edu or mail it to 2400 S. Flower Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007.
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