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Dead multiple times, saved by trauma team

By CNN

CO: MAN REUNITES WITH TRAUMA TEAM THAT SAVED HIS LIFE

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    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (KOAA) — A little girl who is too young to fully understand she is lucky her dad is alive watched as her father returned to UCHealth Memorial Hospital to greet the team that saved him with smiles and hugs.

“Every time I think about, ‘Hey, I’m so grateful to be here for my daughter,’ I just think about how many people it took to get me here,” said accident survivor Cowboy Lopez.

“In a really bad situation, I’ve come out really good. I feel like really blessed, blessed by the best, I say,” said Lopez.

The phrase “really bad situation” is an understatement.

“I was dead a few times for sure,” said Lopez.

“He was mostly dead,” said UCHealth Memorial trauma surgeon Dr. Brian Leininger.

“Outcomes like this are a true testament to the hours of training that we put in every year. It’s a testament to the system that we have in the city,” said Colorado Springs Firefighter Paramedic Lt. Joshua Buck.

Working on a skid loader at his shop TrueFixAuto, in an instant, Lopez was trapped under body-crushing weight from it.

“The hydraulics collapsed, and then the bucket is what fell on top of my back,” said Lopez. “The realization of what had happened and the amount of pain I was in was almost unbearable.”

“It broke most of the bones in his chest, collapsed one of his lungs, caused serious internal bleeding in his abdomen, major damage to his pelvis,” said Dr. Leininger. “The injury also suffocated him because the weight had been sitting on his chest long enough that he could not breathe and blood could not circulate.”

A lot aligned that day for help to happen in rapid succession.

The accident happened less than a mile from Fire Station 8 near South Academy Boulevard. The firefighters happened to already be at their truck, and the medical lieutenant in a mobile unit with whole blood was already in the area, just two to three minutes away.

Whole blood carried by Colorado Springs firefighters was added to trauma protocol a little more than two years ago.

Out of a little more than 200 cases where it has been given, Lopez’s is among the worst-case scenarios.

“Out of all of the drugs that we carry, hundreds of drugs, this is one that has an immediate impact that you can see,” said Buck.

“To have a shot at doing anything for him, he had to not be dead when he got here, and the fact that the firefighters and the medics were able to give him whole blood, I believe, is why he arrived here alive,” said Dr. Leininger.

Even with the blood, doctors say Lopez was actively dying when he arrived at the hospital. The skill of UCHealth Memorial’s emergency department team made way for several trauma surgeons to work on countering his injuries.

“We figure out what is the biggest threat to the patient’s life right at that moment and we address that, and then once we’re satisfied with that, we move on to the next thing and the next thing,” said Dr. Leininger.

A half dozen surgeries, months in the hospital, and more than a year of rehab followed. Firefighters, doctors, nurses and therapists are the reason he is telling his story.

“When you have had so many injuries that you never know if you’re going to be the person you were before, and in a lot of ways, I’m not,” said Lopez.

“He got hurt so badly that he needed just about every single thing that Memorial had,” said Dr. Leininger.

A man whose expertise is car repair experienced firsthand what it takes to fix people.

“They [the medical staff] would come in for their job, but whenever they were in that room with me, it just felt like they were my aunt or my sister or a family member caring for it,” said Lopez. “I had no idea what whole blood was, but I certainly do now.”

Lopez thanks his higher power and the dozens of pros on the UCHealth Memorial team who were determined to help him live after dying.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. KOAA verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

The US Navy’s plan for almost 20 guided-missile subs and why that will matter around China

By CNN
(CNN) — The US Navy this week announced a “pivotal shift” in its future submarine force, and it’s a move analysts say provides important insights into how Washington would fight any possible conflict in the Pacific, where China is rapidly building up its forces.The Pentagon announced that 19 planned nuclear-powered Virginia-class attack submarines (SSNs) would now be classified as guided-missile submarines (SSGNs) and fitted with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM), an 84-foot-long section which adds 28 missile-launch cells to the 12 on current versions of these subs.Those cells can be loaded with Tomahawk land-attack missiles as well as hypersonic vehicles. Combined with the stealthy abilities of submarines, this will provide the new boats with a crucial ability to get inside China’s missile defenses, analysts say.“Submarines are one of the few capabilities which can loiter forward, near or within the first island chain in relative safety,” said Sidharth Kaushal, senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, referring to the string of islands from Japan southward through Taiwan and the Philippines, inside of which Beijing can bring the most firepower to bear.“Second, hypersonic missiles represent a capability against which US adversaries – which otherwise enjoy robust air defenses – have more limited defenses,” Kaushal said. And getting the high-speed, maneuverable missiles closer to their targets strains adversary reaction time.Key strike platforms being retiredThe details of the new sub plan come at a critical time for the Navy.This year it is beginning to retire its four Ohio-class guided-missile subs. Those boats were converted to SSGNs 20 years ago from their nuclear deterrent role as ballistic-missile subs, or boomers, after the US and Russia reduced their nuclear forces with the 1993 START II treaty.Once armed with nuclear-tipped Trident ballistic missiles, the four reconfigured Ohio-class subs can carry up to 154 Tomahawks each, and have been prized assets for deterrence and combat missions around the globe.Speaking to CNN in 2021, Bradley Martin, a former Navy captain turned naval researcher at the RAND Corp think tank, called the Ohio-class SSGNs “the platform with the single largest ability to deliver conventional missile payloads.”During the 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, an Ohio-class boat was called upon to augment B-2 bomber strikes.But one of the four Ohio-class SSGNs, the USS Georgia, began its deactivation process last month and the other three are scheduled to do the same over the next several years.Retirement of those boats will reduce the Navy’s undersea strike capability by up to 60%, according to the Washington, DC-based Submarine Industrial Base Council.The first of the Virginia-class SSGNs are not scheduled to join the fleet until 2029, so the Navy is likely to see a shrinkage in its missile strike capabilities in the meantime. The last of the new subs isn’t due to join the fleet until 2038.Current inventory includes at least 24 smaller versions of the Virginia class as well as around 20 older Los Angeles-class subs and three specialized Seawolf-class boats, so the Navy is not without conventional sub-launched missile capability.In the long run, leaders are confident the 19 new boats will prove suitable replacements for the Ohios.“These VPM-equipped SSGNs will ensure the Navy continues to dominate the undersea domain for decades to come. By integrating this additional payload capacity, we will have the ability to surge strike power to assure our allies, deter aggression, outmatch any adversary,” Vice Adm. Rob Gaucher, director of submarine programs, said in a statement.“Georgia and her sister ships proved the enduring value of combining undersea stealth with unmatched clandestine strike capability,” the chief of naval operations, Adm. Daryl Caudle, said.“The next generation of Virginia-class SSGNs builds on that legacy with greater survivability, adaptability, and sustained combat power,” Caudle added.Not a one-for-one swapAnalysts caution that the move from the Ohio class to the Virginia class is not a one-for-one trade, as a single Virginia-class sub will carry only about 26% of the missiles of an Ohio-class one. That means it will take four future boats to equal the firepower of one currently.Analyst Bryan Clark, a Hudson Institute senior fellow and former Navy officer, notes another key difference between the two – the Ohio class has two rotating crews while the Virgina class has only one, meaning the former could spend twice as long actually on patrol.But being able to disperse missiles over a greater number of platforms has its advantages, says Alessio Patalano, professor of war and strategy at King’s College, London.“They expand the number of platforms that can bring the fight deep into an enemy’s territory, and as such opponents will have to contend with more assets they have to track, or at least try to,” Patalano said.It’s a key point in any possible conflict over Taiwan, the democratically governed island that the Chinese Communist Party claims as sovereign territory despite never having controlled it.China has been in the midst of an aggressive submarine-building program in recent years.According to a February report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the PLA Navy ramped up its production of nuclear-powered submarines over the past five years to the point where it is launching subs faster than the US, threatening to negate a sea-power advantage that has long belonged to Washington.From 2021 to 2025, China’s submarine building surpassed that of the US in both numbers of subs launched – 10 to 7 – and tonnage – 79,000 to 55,500, says the report.In an attack sub configuration, that’s more hunters of US subs in regional waters.Beijing has been rapidly building its missile forces, too.In December 2024, the Pentagon estimated that China’s rocket force had boosted its missile supply by 50% in the preceding four years.The People’s Liberation Army wants “to set the conditions for the invasion of Taiwan,” Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at the non-profit national security group CNA and an expert on China’s missile forces, told CNN last year. “So that’s shooting at ports, shooting at helicopter bases, shooting at supply bases … shooting at anything that can theoretically let you bring support to Taiwan.”“They want to destroy things in theater and keep everything else out,” Eveleth said.This buildup comes at a time when the US military’s own munitions stockpiles have seen significant depletion since President Donald Trump’s decision to join Israel and bomb Iran.Close-in operationsAnalysts said the new Virginia-class subs help negate China’s missile advantage, especially in the early days of any conflict.US subs that can get inside that first island chain would be in prime position to take out radars and command posts that would be coordinating defenses and helping Chinese missile targeting, analysts said.That could “degrade an adversary’s anti-surface capabilities to a level sufficient to enable other platforms such as surface ships to be moved forward at less risk, thus setting the conditions for aircraft carriers to provide follow-on strikes,” RUSI’s Kaushal said.Hypersonic launch capabilities enhance the new Virginia class further, analysts said, noting that testing of a hypersonic glide vehicle is well underway.They help give the newest Virginia class “a genuine uplift in the strike function,” said Patalano at King’s College.“That’s what gives an adversary an extra moment of pause,” he said.What can’t be forgotten, however, is that China won’t be standing still.At a military parade in Beijing last fall, China showed off a dizzying amount of new missiles, including a range of hypersonic vehicles, that many analysts say put the PLA at the forefront of that technology.Also in the parade ranks were new uncrewed submersible vehicles – underwater drones, stealthy in their own right, that could pose a threat to any of Beijing’s adversaries.The realities of that are surely obvious to the US Navy. But its leadership retains confidence in an area where it has been unmatched since World War II.“Armed with state-of-the-art sensors, unmatched stealth, and advanced automation, these reclassified SSGNs will operate with impunity in contested waters, ensuring the United States Navy maintains absolute undersea supremacy,” a Navy statement said.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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