Fan blade stuck in 2-year-old’s head removed in miracle surgery

In an unusual surgery, a 30-cm-long fan blade which had got embedded in the head of a two-year-old baby was successfully removed at Faridabad’s Fortis Escorts Hospital.

It was a strange accident when a 30-cm-long blade pierced in the boy’s head with three cm of it stuck into the brain while he was playing all alone in front of a high-speed fan.

When the child was rushed to the hospital, he was conscious but the cerebrospinal fluid which is a the clear, colourless and watery fluid that flows in and around the brain and spinal cord, was leaking from the wound.

The team of doctors led by Dr. Nitish Agarwal, Consultant, Neurosurgery immediately swung into action. They performed a left frontal craniotomy which involved removal of part of a bone from the skull to expose the brain and then taking out the fan blade which was stuck in it.

The whole complex surgery procedure took more than three hours.

Sharing details of the case, Dr Agarwal said: “The fan blade had pierced the left side of the child’s brain and thus there was a serious concern that his speech might get affected. Also, there were chances of bleeding and hematoma or clot formation in the brain as well as a risk of infection due to the foreign body presence inside the brain.”

He added that there was a high risk of severe infection like meningitis and ventriculitis also.

Following an assessment of the challenges involved it was decided to extract the fan blade by drilling the bone circumferentially around the blade.

After the surgery the child was moved to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit and later to the ward. To avoid any infection, the child was kept on intravenous antibiotics for a period of seven days. The boy is recovering well.