Casey Burns Survived a Stray Bullet While Pregnant

Casey Burns was sitting in her car in the driveway of her North Whitehall Township home, laughing with her sister, brother and fiancé when somewhere nearby, a gun went off. The bullet penetrated the car window, cracking the glass. Burns’ head began to bleed. She was shaking as her family quickly called for help.

Within minutes, emergency crews arrived and began advanced life support. When they learned that Burns not only had a severe head injury but was 7 ½ months pregnant, they called University MedEvac. The helicopter rushed her to Lehigh Valley Hospital.

Members of the trauma team told Burns she was in the hospital and would be OK. “Her eyes told us she was scared,” says Laurie Cartwright, R.N. A team from the hospital’s mother-baby unit monitored the fetus while the trauma team treated Burns and took a CT scan of her brain. They were surprised by what they discovered: the bullet ricocheted off her head, lodging a piece of skull in the area of the brain that controls speech and motor skills.

Casey Burns needed surgery right away. While preparations were underway, staff chaplain Charles Orth sought out Burns’ family. He found her mother, Allie Dickinson, outside the emergency department, totally distraught. Orth tried to calm her, reassuring her that her daughter was alive and in good hands. “There’s no dress rehearsal for this stuff,” he says. “She was trying to wrap her mind around something so unimaginable.” He spent several hours with Burns’ family, updating them on her care and progress and praying with them.

Over the next three hours, neurosurgeon Stefano Camici, M.D., and his team carefully removed a large blood clot and bone fragment from Burns’ brain while anesthesia specialists monitored her and her unborn baby. Burns was lucky. If the bullet had penetrated her brain, there would have been more damage—but as she recovered in the intensive care unit, her doctors still weren’t sure she would walk or talk again.

Two days later, Burns opened her eyes and was able to follow her doctors’ commands to move parts of her body. The next day, she spoke, and five days later went home from the hospital. Outpatient care helped refine her motor skills and speech.

Burns learned she was accidentally shot by a hunter firing at a deer. “She’s a miracle,” says trauma chief Michael Pasquale, M.D. “Everyone did a great job caring for her.”

A few months later, Burns returned to the hospital to say thank-you to the people who cared for her in those first crucial hours. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here and neither would she,” she said, showing the team her three-month-old daughter, Hailey Alexis. Aside from some short-term memory loss, Burns feels great today. She married her fiancé, Robbie Kantner, in March and plans to go to school to become an elementary school teacher.

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