SPEARED, SURVIVED

A six-foot pointed iron rod suddenly dropped from the skies and, like a spear, pierced the body of a man and travelled in multiple directions, emerging and re-entering his body before finally getting lodged in his thigh.

Surgery saves man pierced by rod

A six-foot pointed iron rod suddenly dropped from the skies and, like a spear, pierced the body of a man and travelled in multiple directions, emerging and re-entering his body before finally getting lodged in his thigh.

The man survived to tell the tale.

Santosh Kumar 21 was saved after immediate treatment conducted by Dr Gajanan Wagholikar senior gastro-intestinal surgeon and Dr J C Purohit senior orthopaedic surgeon at the Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital ABMH at Thergaon in Chinchwad.

Kumar, an unskilled labourer from Bihar who had come to the city around a month ago, had sought employment at a construction site in Aundh. On December 1, as he was stepping out of the site, he was hit by the rod which slipped from a pulley on the seventh floor.

The rod penetrated through his right shoulder to come out from the right arm. It then diagonally entered the right side of his abdomen, came out of the left groin and went into the thigh. The hapless labourer remained immobilised on the ground in an odd position, writhing in agony.

Shifting Kumar to a hospital, with the iron rod deeply embedded in his body, was an ordeal in itself as he had to be carried in the same immobilised position, Wagholikar told media persons here on Wednesday.

After a cursory survey of the wounds and emergency X-rays, he was wheeled within minutes to the operation theatre. The rod had penetrated the intestines in multiple locations, making 16 holes. Two segments of the intestine were badly damaged. While they had to be sacrificed and healthy intestine reconnected, the other holes were painstakingly closed. The patient spent the first few days following the operation in the Surgical ICU and registered a slow and steady recovery.

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8220;God was truly on his side,8221; said Dr Wagholikar, who operated upon him. He was assisted by Dr Purohit and Dr Deepali Gonjari in the five-and-a-half hour long surgery.

Injuries with the penetrating object lodged in the body are known as impalement injuries and are extremely rare in surgical trauma practice. Majority of these injuries are fatal. Wagholikar applauded the presence of mind shown by the construction workers and the contractor in shifting the victim immediately to a specialty hospital.