Docs at city hospital using new technique to save veteran's foot

Docs at city hospital using new technique to save veteran's foot
BY PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, May 25th 2008, 4:00 AM


Jeff Guerin and fiancee Jennifer Toteda at Hospital for Special Surgery where Afghan veteran had treatment.
It's been five years since major combat operations were declared over in Iraq, but the fighting continues. Troops went to war in Afghanistan weeks after 9/11. Thousands of wounded veterans battle long-term to recover from instantaneous carnage. Here is one soldier's story of pain - and the hope he found here in the city:

The toll of the war wounded exceeds 31,000, and the trademark of the battles in Iraq and Afghanistan is the vet who lost a limb. There are some 750 amputees, and many of these young men and women wear their prosthetic arms and legs proudly uncovered.

But onetime Army medic Jeff Guerin, wounded in Afghanistan 3-1/2 years ago, is fighting to keep his leg in a painstaking process developed by surgeons at the Hospital for Special Surgery.