06:17 PM PDT on Monday, July 10, 2006

JEAN ENERSEN / KING 5 News

In September of 2004, three co-workers were having fun on jet skis on Lake Sammamish – until two of them collided.

Sam George was hit from behind at full speed.

"I was thrown forward into the water and wound up face-down unconscious in the water,” he said. “The paramedics thought I wouldn't make it.”

Broken bones were the least of his problems.

"By the time I got to Harborview I had lost in the neigborhood of two-thirds of the blood in my body,” he said.

He was also bleeding internally, but an IV given in the field may have saved him.

 “What's so critical with this study is that the fluid has to be administered as early as possible. To really be effective it has to be the first IV fluid the patient gets,” said Dr. Eileen Bulger.

That fluid is a concentrated dose of saline with or without dextran, a sugar.  It's a formulation already used in 14 European countries, but has yet to receive FDA approval.

"We're looking for improvement in survival based on improved blood flow and profusion to the tissues and potentially reducing their inflammatory response so they would have less organ injury,” said Dr. Bulger.

As part of the early study, George won't find out until August whether he got the experimental treatment or not, but given his remarkable recovery, he believes he did.

"I'm back to work fulltime. I have a daughter now who keeps me very active and busy, and yeah I feel great,” he said.

Wife Cortney, pregnant at the time of the accident, didn't have to do much convincing to get her husband to look for other hobbies.

"No more jets skis for me,” said George.

Harborview is about to launch a much larger study that will involve 10 hosptials in the U.S. and Canada. It will include brain injury as well as trauma patients.

Patients will receive one of the two concentrated saline solutions or standard IV treatment. Because they will be in no condition to give consent, the FDA is waiving that requirement due to the potential life-saving benefits of this treatment. However, patients will be asked for their consent as soon as it is possible to do so.