A phone call away
Lukas Shook, a U.S. Army veteran, Military Medicine Program patient
U.S. Army veteran Lukas Shook spent most of 2021 and the early part of 2022 calling surgeons around the country to help fix the massive wound that had developed on his right foot.
The spinal cord injury Shook suffered during combat in Iraq in 2008 left him with little sensation in his feet, meaning he can’t tell when wounds, similar to bedsores, form on his lower limbs as they rub against the leg braces that help him walk.
“Nobody likes to drag their foot around and have blood all over the house,” says the 35-year-old veteran.
His care team within the VA St. Louis Healthcare System and some of the providers he consulted outside the military suggested amputation, which would have been catastrophic as Shook’s spinal cord injury most likely wouldn’t support a prosthetic.
Fortunately, that’s when a nurse at the nearby VA hospital recommended Shook visit Jason Souza, MD, a plastic surgeon and U.S. Navy veteran at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio.
“She had sent another soldier there who was semi-similar to me and had seen success,” Shook says.
Dr. Souza was able to perform two reconstructive surgeries to help Shook in 2022: one using skin from Shook’s thigh to repair the wound and another to slim down extra skin on the foot after the wound healed. Dr. Souza fixed the soft-tissue breakdown, but, more importantly, saved his fellow veteran from amputation.
Dr. Souza, who had previously served as director of the Peripheral Nerve Program at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, began working here in late 2021 and founded the Military Medicine Program, focusing on reconstructive care and pain management, to help service members wounded in combat, whether recently or decades ago.
The Military Medicine Program exists to help people just like Shook.
Shook joined the U.S. Army in 2007 when he was 19 — “It’s something I’ve always believed in since I was 6,” he says — and he deployed the following year to Iraq.
His job with the Army was to escort dignitaries when they traveled around Iraq. He and his team always wore a battery of protective combat gear when they left the base in case they came under enemy fire.
Unfortunately, when a rocket struck near Shook, then 21, he was still on base.
“I was just walking back from breakfast, and a 107-millimeter rocket landed behind me and it hit me in my lower, middle and upper section,” Shook says. “I don’t remember a lot of the first month, except 2 minutes I woke up in the bunker and blood running into my eyes and I couldn’t see and everything felt like it was on fire. I honestly didn’t have any hopes of making it.”
Shook did survive, though, with severe damage to his skull and spinal cord.
After spending a day in a hospital in Iraq and a week in a hospital in Germany, he returned to the United States and went to Walter Reed where he began a long road to recovery. He spent almost a year working on rehabilitation at a hospital in Florida before he was discharged from the Army.
He had to learn how to walk again with the help of braces, and cope with not being as physically active as he once was. He’s also had to learn how to accept help when he needs it.
Although he’s now married and has two beautiful daughters, there are daily reminders of his injury — and the wounds that develop on his feet are one of the most debilitating.
Since the first moment Shook spoke with Dr. Souza, his mind was put at ease about that issue.
“I thought he was very intelligent and able to speak to me in a way that I would understand without making me feel dumb,” Shook says. “I could tell he really cared about people.”
It’s helped his confidence in his health, he says, to have a veteran who worked for years at Walter Reed oversee his care. He knows if he has any issues related to his injury, he has someone to call.
“I don’t want Dr. Souza to think I’ll be calling him all the time,” Shook says with a chuckle. “Walter Reed used to be my favorite place, but I’d say OSU is my favorite place now. OSU’s the best hospital I’ve ever been to.”