TWO TEENS SAVED AT JACKSON RETURN TO CELEBRATE HOSPITAL’S U.S. NEWS RANKINGS

Patients Yasser Lopez, 17, and Aaron Willis, 15; Carlos A. Migoya, Jackson Health System president and CEO; Joe Natoli, interim COO of University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and senior vice president for business and finance and CFO of the University of Miami; Dr. Eduardo C. Alfonso, chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and director of the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute

When teenagers Yasser Lopez and Aaron Willis were both critically injured – one from a freak accident that left a spear protruding from his head and the other unable to walk after being shot in the back – it was the medical team from Jackson Memorial Hospital that saved their lives. Theirs are just two of the countless stories of the miracles made daily at Jackson.

On Tuesday, Yasser and Aaron will join Jackson president and CEO Carlos A. Migoya at an employee rally to celebrate Jackson’s rankings in U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best Hospitals survey, which will be made public earlier in the day.

Yasser’s life dramatically changed in June 2012 during a fishing outing with a friend when he was accidentally shot in the head with a three-foot long metal projectile, fired from a spear gun. The spear entered his forehead and protruded through the back of his skull. Yasser – still conscious – was rushed to Ryder Trauma Center, where a team of University of Miami/Jackson neurosurgeons performed a delicate, four-hour surgery to remove the spear from Yasser’s head. Now, just one year since the freak accident, Yasser is 17 and continuing physical, occupation and speech therapy at Jackson Rehabilitation Hospital. He is getting better every day.

Just days before Christmas 2012, Aaron Willis was riding his bike in Wynwood when a gunman in a car drove by and shot him in the back. The bullet struck Aaron’s spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed. Aaron spent weeks recovering in the pediatric intensive care unit at Holtz Children’s Hospital at the UM/Jackson Memorial Medical Center before being moved to the pediatric rehabilitation unit at Jackson Rehabilitation Hospital. In the seven months since the shooting, Aaron has continued therapy at Jackson and learned that he can still live an independent life in a wheelchair. Aaron, 15, is actively involved in Jackson’s recreation therapy program, has mastered handcycling, is learning to play wheelchair basketball and is now swimming every week with the aquatic rehab program. In August, Aaron will be returning to school for the first time since the shooting.

Both Yasser and Aaron will be available for media interviews.

July

16, 2013, 12:00 p.m.- 1:00 p.m.

Jackson Memorial Hospital
Alamo Park 
Just off of Northwest 12th Avenue and 16th Street
Miami, FL 33136

Media can park along the curb on Northwest 16th Street, near Alamo Park.