About 45 minutes later, McNeil will move to the operating room to clean out Mellinger's wound, washing out bits of bullet and bone fragments from his thigh.

NPR: 'Miracle Workers' Save Lives at Balad Field Hospital

But the image that strikes me, and the one I remember, is that of an aging, lonely, unkempt, drug-addicted recluse, ensconced at a terribly high expense in a Las Vegas suite, obsessively trying to keep things operating-room clean, living in fear that a germ would infect and kill him.

CNN: "The Secret Life of Germs" author Philip Tierno