Apollo Doctors remove 7 cm knife from teenagers chest

New Delhi: In a rare turn of events, 19 year old Mukul, was rushed to the emergency department of Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals as he was stabbed over right area of the chest leading to fatal injuries and loss of blood.

On 15th Nov, 2019, Mukul was stabbed with the iron rod which was about 15 cms of which 6-7 cms entered in the lower part of the back of left side of chest after he got into a fight which resulted in puncture of the posterior chest wall. Excessive mediastinal bleeding is a significant complication of cardiac operations with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). It increases the risks of cardiac failure, dysrhythmias, and infection. Initial CT showed there was massive blood in the chest on the right side. The iron was seen close to major blood vessel from heart. He was immediately admitted to cardiac ICU and was prepared for emergency surgery. The heart lung machine was also kept ready for the procedure.

Dr Priyadarshini Singh, Head of Department – Emergency - Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals said, "The emergency team rushed to attend the patient with immediate attention within five minutes of the patient being admitted to the emergency department, our primary mission is to give our patients the appropriate level of medical care in the fastest, most efficient manner possible."

The major challenge was that all the measures had to be done with him lying on his stomach (prone position) as he had this huge iron rod sticking out of his back. In such cases, the foreign body should not be touched till the patient goes to the operation theatre. This is because the object is actually helping to control the bleeding as it creates the pressure. If it is removed, then there can be chances of potential blood loss and death in minutes. Thus, to prevent blood loss we arranged a unit of blood in advance." added Dr Singh.

Explaining about the surgical procedure, Dr Muthu Jothi, Senior Consultant, Paediatric Cardio Thoracic Surgeon, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals said, "After proper evaluation we decided to perform thoracotomy which is a surgery to open the chest. There was a big clot on the aorta and there was additional injury to small area of left corner lope of lung. An incision was made between 2 ribs in the chest wall from front to back to operate on lungs. We then placed a chest tube to make sure that blood or air does not collect in the chest. Later he was put on nasal prongs with oxygen. There was also a linear tear on the L dome of diaphragm which was repaired to prevent any complication. We sealed all the wounds and closed the chest in layers. Mukul improved gradually and with the support of medication, he was discharged on 18th Nov, 2019."