I'm surprised that CNN didn't get O'Brien out of the Philippines for the fasciotomy attempt. Sure, any surgery anywhere can have bad results, but an organization like that should do the best it can rather than rolling the dice with the locals. I wouldn't have recommended flying back to the USA, but at some point in the couple of days between the injury and the surgery, he could have flown to world-class health care in Singapore. It sounds as if they sort of left it up to him, which reflects quite poorly on the organization. There are people in CNN HR who are paid to deal with this kind of thing.

Of course, I say this as someone who waited a week to get an X-ray of my broken arm. Fortunately the only treatment indicated for my particular break is "stop using your arm", which I had already done. b^)