Tri-Cities nonprofit sends surgical equipment to war-torn Ukraine to heal broken bones

Enough medical equipment to treat 100 people injured in the war in Ukraine is wending its way toward the country’s capital city of Kyiv.

It comes from the nonprofit Surgical Implant Generation Network, or SIGN, Fracture Care in Richland, Wash.

SIGN may be better known for providing the education and implant systems needed to heal broken bones in the poor in third-world countries.

But with the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, orthopedic surgeons there also need SIGN Fracture Care’s help for those with bones broken by shrapnel from bombs and gunfire.

In a manufacturing plant on George Washington Way in Richland, the instruments and implants needed to heal breaks of the long bones of the legs and arms are manufactured.

They are part of a system developed by the nonprofit’s founder, Dr. Lewis Zirkle, to quickly and efficiently treat broken bones to the same standards used in U.S. hospitals. But they work without the use of real-time images from the expensive C-arm X-ray machines that surgeons in this country depend on to guide their work on difficult fractures.

Wartime conditions

The wartime conditions in Ukraine makes it the 55th country in the world where the SIGN Fracture Care system will be used.

“The problem is that their hospitals are now overloaded with the wounded,” Zirkle said. “They don’t have enough implants because trade .... is stopped.”

There is a need not only for supplies, but also for a method to fix broken bones quickly and do it without reliable electricity for X-ray imaging during wartime.

The first shipment, with at least $20,000 of supplies and equipment, has been flown to the Czech Republic and will be trucked across Slovakia to the east to reach Kyiv in north-central Ukraine.

A second shipment is being prepared to be sent later this week via Poland, where SIGN Fracture Care contacts there have contacts within Ukraine.

“It’s one of those instances in life where you take a chance, because it may not get there,” Zirkle said. “Or, I hope this doesn’t happen, Russia takes over. But we think it’s worth the risk.”

Each shipment could cost $2,000 to send, said Jeanne Dillner, SIGN Fracture Care chief executive.

SIGN Fracture Care is covering shipping costs and a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis, Minn., has offered to pay for half the cost of producing the equipment and implants of both shipments.

Bone implants

Currently the majority of countries where bone implant materials and equipment are supplied and surgeons trained to use the system are in Africa, Asia and South America.

Belarus is the only European country where the SIGN Fracture Care system and equipment was previously being used.

If fractures do not heal “you are stuck in a bed,” Zirkle said. “It saves a life. If it hits a wage earner in the family, the whole family spirals into poverty for three generations.”

The instruments to insert bone implants in legs and upper arms, the implants — called nails — and external fixators to stabilize badly fractured bones are included in the first shipment.

The shipments also include a virtual reality headset, technique manuals and a video showing what happens inside the bone canal to help surgeons learn the system.

“You can learn it very quickly,” Zirkle said.

In the system Zirkle developed, a jig guides the surgeon as an implant rod is driven down the hollow of the leg bone.

The jig, which Zirkle calls a slot finder, is held parallel to the leg, showing the doctor where the screw holes are in the rod that’s now hidden deep in the leg, making real-time imaging unnecessary.

Inserting the implants, or nails, takes less time with the SIGN Fracture Care system than with the traditional system using real-time imaging.

SIGN Fracture Care is accepting donations to send more bone-healing supplies to Ukraine. Go to signfracturecare.org/ukraine-response.

It also is seeking donations of external fixators from surgeons to send to Ukraine.

Ukraine refugee fundraiser

▪ Nonprofits in Prosser are joining together for a “Stand for Ukraine” fundraiser 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 11, at the Princess Theatre, 1228 Meade Ave., Prosser.

Money collected will go to Transforming Nations, a Christian charity working directly with Ukrainian refugees on the Polish border.

“I am hopeful that this gesture from our small town will at least help with the immediate needs of someone having to start their whole life over in a new country,” said event organizer Peter Cole, a theater board and Rotary Club member

The event organized by the Princess Theatre, Mustangs for Mustangs and the Prosser Rotary Club plan videos and images from the Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian food, local wines and beers, and sodas for purchase.

Horse Heaven Saloon will provide traditional Ukrainian borscht meals. The theater windows will be lit in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian flag.

This story was originally published March 8, 2022 at 9:29 AM.