The Story of ATLS

James K. Styner, MD, FACS, recounts the events that led up to birth of the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) course.
In February 1976, a tragedy occurred that changed the first hour of trauma care for injured patients in the United States and in much of the rest of the world. Dr. Jim Styner, an orthopaedic surgeon, crashed his small plane into a cornfield in rural Nebraska. Dr. Styner sustained serious injuries, three of his children sustained critical injuries, and one child sustained minor injuries. His wife was killed instantly. The care that he and his family subsequently received was inadequate by the day’s standards. The surgeon, recognizing how inadequate their treatment was, stated, "When I can provide better care in the field with limited resources than what my children and I received at the primary care facility, there is something wrong with the system, and the system has to be changed."