Some miracles take place in the operation room. Surgeons in Israel performed a miracle surgery on a boy who was hit by a car while riding his bike. The experts managed to reattach a boy’s head and shared a photo on Instagram following the successful procedure.
Suleiman Hassan, a 12-year-old boy from the West Bank, was riding his bike when a car struck him. As a result of the accident, Hassan faced a condition called internal decapitation, where his skull detached from the back of his spine.
The boy was immediately taken to the Hadassah Medical Center and shifted to the operation room in the trauma unit. The doctors said his head was “almost completely detached from the base of his neck.”
Dr. Ohad Einav, the orthopedic specialist who was in charge of the operation, said the operation lasted a few hours and the doctors used plates and fixations to treat the damaged part of his body. “Our ability to save the child was thanks to our knowledge and the most innovative technology in the operating room,” Einav said.
Einav and his team believed that the boy had a survival rate of 50 percent. With the diligent work of the doctors and the boy’s fighting spirit, they were able to take off their gloves with a happy ending. Hassan was later discharged with a cervical splint and the medical team will continue to monitor his recovery.
“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,” Einav said.
Hassan’s father stayed by his son’s bedside during the recovery process and he expressed gratitude to the medical team for saving his son’s life. “Bless you all,” the father said. “Thanks to you, he regained his life even when the odds were low and the danger was obvious.”
“What saved him were professionalism, technology and quick decision-making by the trauma and orthopedics team,” the father added.
Dr. Marc Siegel, Clinical Professor of Medicine, said: “The key is preserving blood flow to the brain. It sounds like — from the story — that the major blood vessels were likely not severed and that this involved an orthopedic rebuilding — probably using rods and reattaching ligaments and possibly bone grafts and implants.”
Hassan’s story is extremely rare and given that he’s a child with a fragile bone structure, it makes the surgery more risky. A surgeon’s expertise greatly influences the outcome of the operation.
“This is not a common surgery at all, and especially not on children and teens. A surgeon needs knowledge and experience to do this,” he concluded.