A surgery no less than a miracle!
(Image source: Instagram/hadassah_medical_center)
Surgeons at the Hadassah Medical Centre Ein Kerem in Israel performed a miraculous surgery by successfully reattaching a 12-year-old boy’s head to his neck after a serious road accident.
The boy – Suleiman Hassan’s “routine bike ride almost ended in disaster” when he “was forcefully run over by a wild driver," said the hospital in Jerusalem where the surgery took place in a statement on their website.
Impact of the accident
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“The injury left him with a fracture in the head and neck joint and tears in all his supporting ligaments,” they continued, adding that Hassan “was turned to Hadassa Ein Kerem by helicopter and was immediately admitted for a long and complex emergency surgery.”
As per the doctors, Hassan suffered a bilateral atlanto occipital joint dislocation. “Due to the serious injury the head almost completely disconnected from the base of the neck," said Dr. Ohad Einav, a specialist orthopedist who performed the surgery on Hassan, in the statement.
More about the successful operation
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The procedure took place last month, and the result was made public in July. On Instagram, the hospital shared an image of Hassan with the doctors. The caption described it as an "extremely rare and complex operation," where Hadassah Medical Center surgeons "reattached a 12-year-old boy’s head to his neck after a serious accident in which he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle."
The caption on the July 6 post continued, "Suleiman Hassan, from the Jordan Valley, was airlifted to Hadassah’s trauma unit in Ein Kerem, where it was determined that the ligaments holding the posterior base of his skull were severed from the top vertebrae of his spine. The condition, bilateral atlanto occipital joint dislocation, is commonly known as internal or orthopedic decapitation. The injury is very rare in adults, and even more so in children."
The doctors said Hassan’s skull got detached from the top vertebrae of his spine and he was immediately operated upon in the trauma unit, according to a Times of Israel report.
Knowledge and technology saved the boy
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As per the report, Dr Einav said the doctors used “new plates and fixations in the damaged area.”
“Our ability to save the child was thanks to our knowledge and the most innovative technology in the operating room,” Dr Einav was quoted as saying by the New York Post.
A miraculous recovery!
The surgeons said the boy had a 50 percent chance of survival, making his complete recovery truly miraculous. “The fact that such a child has no neurological deficits or sensory or motor dysfunction and that he is functioning normally and walking without an aid after such a long process is no small thing,” said Dr Einav.
Boy’s father thankful to the doctors
The hospital further stated that the boy's father never left his son at any moment.
As reported by Israel's TPS news agency, thanking the doctors, Hassan’s father said, “Thanks to you, he regained his life even when the danger was obvious.”
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