Salem GH surgeons remove knife piercing boy's cheek

SALEM: Surgeons at the Salem Govt Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College and Hospital successfully extracted a knife that had pierced a five-year-old boy's cheek and through the roof of his mouth.

On May 5, Rohit, the five-year-old son of Thiagarajan from Salem, was playing at home when he fell on a kitchen knife.

"After receiving first aid, a CT scan of the head was taken, which revealed that the knife had penetrated the boy's facial bones and had lodged at the base of the skull, grazing a blood vessel in the brain," said Dr Devi Meenal, dean.

The dean and the medical superintendent, Dr Rajkumar, formed a multidisciplinary medical team under the guidance of professor of neurosurgery Dr L Shankar. The team comprised specialists from neurosurgery, plastic surgery, paediatric surgery, radiology, anaesthesiology and ENT surgery.

The boy was taken into emergency surgery without delay, where the surgical team successfully removed the knife from the base of his skull without harming the blood vessel, thus averting a major brain haemorrhage and saving his life.

A post-surgery CT scan indicated a minor haemorrhage in the brain. Subsequently, the boy was moved to the High Intensive Care Unit (HICU) for treatment in collaboration with the paediatric department to prevent infection. He is being closely monitored.

Doctors confirmed that the boy is stable and out of danger. The prompt intervention and collaboration among the various departments were crucial in saving the boy's life, the dean said.