Date:18/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/18/stories/2008071861261400.htm

National

Doctors perform tricky surgery at AIIMS

Staff Reporter

Five-foot-long iron rod removed from accident victim

— PHOTO: PTI

Doctors at AIIMS’s trauma centre display the iron rod, which pierced Supratim Dutta’s chest.

NEW DELHI: Doctors at the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences are calling it a miracle and 22-year-old Supratim Dutta’s family hasn’t stopped thanking their gods for having allowed their son to live to tell about his miraculous escape.

Doctors at the Institute’s Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre had a few days ago operated on Mr. Dutta managing to remove an over five-feet-long iron rod, which had pierced through the upper part of his abdomen and had come out of the chest on the left side. Now recuperating at the hospital, Mr. Dutta is stable but critical. Doctors are now keeping an eye out for any infections or other complications after the surgery.

Mr. Dutta was injured when the driver rammed the office car he was travelling against a Metro barricade. The impact caused the rod to smash through the bonnet and dashboard, pinning Mr. Dutta to the car seat. He remained in that position for half-an-hour till he was rescued.

The injured man alerted his friends and family using his cell phone telling them about his condition and exact location.

“The rod had passed through Mr. Dutta at an angle injuring some body organs but not hitting the spine. When he was brought in, we took stock to ensure that the rod could be pulled out without damaging him further. The way it was stuck, there was no way we could have put the patient through a scanner. The doctors knew that we were to do a complicated operation where one wrong move could mean a permanent injury,” said chief of trauma centre M.C. Misra.

“The patient was brought to us over half-an-hour after the accident, but luckily for him his friends who had reached him did not try pulling out his shirt or the iron rod, that could have led to excessive bleeding and spoiled our case. What also worked in favour of the patient were the facts that the rod had missed vital organs, including the kidney and the heart,” added Dr. Misra, who headed the operation team.

PTI reports:

“When the rod passes through the body, important blood vessels get punctured and the rod itself seals them. It is like a nail stuck in a tyre. If it is taken out, the tyre gets punctured. Till it is in, the tyre remains blown up,” said another doctor.