Bauer’s stitches were doomed to fail, UA engineering student says

University of Akron biomedical engineering student Chloe Tennant says she could have predicted that Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Trevor Bauer’s sutures wouldn’t hold up under the strain of pitching. Bauer, who received 10 stitches to close up a wound on his pinky finger caused by a drone propeller blade, was forced to leave game 3 of the 2016 American League Championship Series when the cut re-opened and bled profusely.

“Sutures just aren’t strong enough to withstand the fluid pressure generated in a pitcher’s pinky finger,” Tennant explains. In fact, just before the ball is released from a pitcher’s hand, the velocity of the forearm causes fluid pressure 4,700 times larger than the pressure it takes to burst nine stiches.

If only someone would have told Manager Terry Francona.

Tennant is one of many researchers presenting at Heal Ohio’s 2016 Conference being held today and tomorrow at Quaker Station in Akron. The event is being hosted by The University of Akron College of Engineering’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and focuses on the science and innovation of wound healing. Tennant, from Wickliffe, Ohio, is in the Drs. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Honors College. She joins clinicians and researchers from Akron General - Cleveland Clinic, Akron Children’s Hospital, Summa Health, The University of Akron, NEOMED, Virginia Tech, among others, who are presenting current findings in wound healing innovations.