New Delhi: Israeli surgeons performed what is being dubbed a ‘miracle’.
In an extremely unusual and complicated surgery, the team of doctors reattached a 12-year-boy’s head to his neck after he was hit by a car while riding a bicycle, The Times of Israel reported.
Suleiman Hassan, an Arab boy from Palestine’s West Bank, suffered an ‘internal decapitation’, with his skull detaching from the top vertebrae of his spine following the accident.
The life-threatening condition is scientifically known as a bilateral atlanto occipital joint dislocation.
The boy was airlifted to Hadassah Medical Center, where he was taken in for emergency surgery.
According to the doctors, his head was “almost completely detached from the base of his neck.”
The surgery took several hours and necessitated placement of new plates and fixations in the damaged area, informed Dr Ohad Einav, the orthopaedic surgeon who oversaw the treatment.
“Our ability to save the child was thanks to our knowledge and the most innovative technology in the operating room as the team fought for the boy’s life,” The Times of Israel quoted Dr Einav as saying.
The boy’s recovery, post surgery, was no less than a miracle as he had only a 50% chance of survival.
Though the procedure took place last month, the doctors made the results public only in July.
Suleiman was recently discharged from the hospital with a cervical splint, and will require regular monitoring by the doctors during his recovery period.
The boy’s father, who did not leave his son at any moment, thanked the hospital staff for saving his only son.
