Three years have passed since Sean Houle was shot in the line of duty. Even so, memories of that day flash in his mind every day: the sight of the barrel of the gun just two feet away before it shot him in the face; the clear-as-day image he had of his wife and young sons as he laid on the street bleeding; the faces of the EMTs who took him into Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center; and then, the care team that awaited to take over from there.
“When he got to the hospital, his condition was critical, life threatening,” said Dr. Kevin Chang, the section chief of surgery at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist High Point Medical Center. “He was basically on death’s door.”
Sean was shot three times, and the first bullet caused the most extensive damage. It hit Sean near his jaw, completely severing his carotid artery, which supplies oxygen-rich blood from the heart and to the brain. The result was massive blood loss – Sean bled out over three times and required 72 units of blood – and a stroke.
“This extent of injury is super rare. We don’t see it very often,” Chang said. “It’s so critical that it takes a lot to survive.”
The effort to save Sean’s life involved specialists across several teams: the trauma team stopped the bleeding, the neurointerventional radiology team stented and covered his vein, and then vascular surgeons and plastic surgeons reconstructed the carotid artery to create a long-term solution. The effort required lightning-fast coordination between multiple specialists.
“It’s rare to involve so many teams concurrently, but our teams have all worked together closely: trauma, vascular, plastics,” Chang said. “None of us were new players to each other, and we have experience taking care of patients in a co-managed fashion.”
The Faces of Hope
Sean stayed in the hospital for a month and a half, and many of his memories of that time are of the faces around him. The first faces that surrounded him were familiar faces: the emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who took him to the hospital were his former colleagues, back from his days working in Emergency Medical Services before he joined the police force.
Through his experience working in law enforcement and EMS, Sean had the advantage of knowing all about the hospital where he was about to become a patient.
“Being involved in public safety meant I already knew how fortunate we are to live in this area and to have the hospitals that we have here,” Sean said. “I already knew what [Atrium Health Wake Forest] Baptist was capable of. I knew that I was in really good hands and that I was going to a facility that had anything and everything I’d need.”
Sean has a special memory of another face from that time as well: Dr. Erik Summers, who was the chief medical officer at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Almost every day after his workday ended, Summers would visit Sean and sit at his bedside to talk. They’d talk about everything: about work, about life, about their childhoods. At a time when COVID restricted the number of visitors who could see Sean, the visits by Summers meant a great deal to Sean.
“He was very special to me throughout the entire ordeal,” Sean says. “To have somebody willing to just come and sit by my bed and talk with me for about 45 minutes at a time, I’ll never forget that. Erik Summers was a very special person to me and to my whole family.”
Sean remembers the names of every doctor who helped him during those weeks in the hospital. The care team remembers him well, too, of course. They all decided to meet on much better terms: at a reunion at the hospital after Sean had healed. It was as special for Sean as for the team who first saw him arrive at the hospital three years ago.
“During the time of the injury, Sean had a newborn baby, and he told me that all he could think about was that he might never see his baby boy grow up,” Chang says. “Now, to see him with his kids, it’s wonderful. It’s so rewarding to see him have such a happy return to normal life.”
While the images from the day of the accident remain with Sean, they’re now joined by new images, of new memories that Sean has made since then: an image of his family’s trip to Disney World, of teaching his older son to play golf, of holding his younger son up to look out from a train window to see the world whizzing by.
“I cherish each and every moment that I get to have with my boys and with my wife because I know better than most people in this world what it’s like to be that close to leaving your family and friends behind,” Sean said.
Back to Protect and Serve, Again
Sean retired from the police force in 2022, but he remains committed to a life of protecting and serving. He works with the Billy Graham Rapid Response team, helping victims who face the immediate aftermath of a crisis such as mass shootings, hurricanes, or floods.
He’s a member of the peer support team at Stokes County, helping law enforcement officers who’ve experienced a traumatic event and want the support of someone who understands. Sean is also back to being a member of EMS in Stokes County.
It’s a full circle moment: Sean is now the one in the ambulance, helping victims who are on their way to the hospital.
“It’s sort of surreal riding in the back of an ambulance with a patient on a stretcher, when it seems like yesterday when I was the one on a stretcher just like that. I look at that patient and realize how much I have a whole new appreciation for everything,” Sean said. “I love a life of service. I love being called during someone’s absolute worst moment of their life to be able to help them in some way.”
And few people understand what that means to a person more than Sean.
