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Pilot-Journalist Miles O’Brien Suffers Life-Changing Injury

PBS Nova correspondent faces challenges to fly again.

PBS correspondent Miles O’Brien, a fixture in the U.S. GA community as a pilot, aviation expert and unofficial spokesman for GA flying, had his left arm amputated above the elbow following what at first seemed like a minor accident. O’Brien was moving some equipment boxes after an assignment in Asia when a large box fell on his left arm, O’Brien revealed in a blog post yesterday.

The injury wound up being far more serious than O’Brien first realized, and during surgery to repair what doctors diagnosed as acute compartment syndrome, surgeons were forced to amputate the arm when O’Brien’s blood pressure dropped dramatically. O’Brien called the choice the doctor made deciding between “a life and a limb.” O’Brien is back in the states and recovering, though he said he faces daily challenges in dealing with “the vicissitudes of life with only one hand.”

We at Flying wish O’Brien a speedy recovery from surgery and a swift return to the cockpit.

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