Doctors, engineers and mechanics worked together beside a hospital bed to cut a large panel of a metal spear-top gate whose arrowheads had pierced a teenager’s arm when he accidentally fell off the terrace at his home.
Later, separated from the rest of the gate, the two metal arrowheads impaling the boy’s left wrist and palm were removed in the operating theatre.
The 18-year-old Salt Lake resident had been brought to the emergency ward with a large grid of the grille gate — made up of horizontal cross rails and vertical arrowheads — stuck to his arm.
That left the doctors in a fix. The frame of the gate had to be cut off the two spikes penetrating the boy’s arm, but they didn’t know how to do it. A metal-cutting machine would generate heat and sparks and burn the arm, the doctors feared.
One of the arrowheads after it was surgically removed
In-house engineers and mechanics were summoned from various departments of the hospital. After toying with the idea of a hacksaw, they and the doctors settled on an electric cutting machine.
They splashed bottles of chilled saline water and sprayed fire extinguisher foam on the boy’s left arm as they cut off the rest of the gate from the two arrowheads.
“When metal is cut with a cutter, a lot of heat is generated and it also triggers sparks. This would have burnt the boy’s arm,” said Dr Surya Udai Singh, orthopaedic surgeon at the Narayana Health-RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, who performed the surgery with other doctors.
“At the same time, it was impossible to remove such a large portion of metal from the hand on the operating table.”
A portion of the spear-top gate after it was cut off the two arrowheads impaling the arm
The boy, who was to appear in this year’s higher secondary exams, is recovering at the Mukundapur hospital.
On February 7 afternoon, days before his exams were to begin, the teen had climbed on the parapet of the terrace at his four-storey home to see whether the water tank had filled up.
“A message had been posted in the building’s WhatsApp group by elderly residents saying there was no water (in the taps),” the boy, who did not wish to be identified, told The Telegraph from his hospital bed.
“I didn’t wait for the caretaker to operate the pump – I did it myself. I would often do this because people are inconvenienced if there is no water.”
Later, while checking the rooftop tank at the residential complex, he slipped and fell over the spiked gate.
“The gate’s pointed rods pierced my arm and I hung there for a brief period. Then the gate broke and I fell on the ground, stuck to the gate,” the boy said.
There was a commotion and his father rushed out. He called a mechanic, but there was a problem.
“If he tried to cut the gate too close to my body, the arm would get burnt. At the same time, with my arm stuck to the gate, I could not be shifted to hospital,” the boy said.
So, the mechanic cut a portion of the gate leaving a safe margin, which meant a fairly large segment of the gate was still stuck to the boy’s arm. He was bleeding heavily.
The boy reached the emergency ward at RN Tagore hospital at 6.07pm on February 7, several hours after the accident.
“He was crying and begging the doctors to sedate him because the pain was unbearable,” said the manager who was on duty at the emergency ward that evening.
“We summoned technicians from our maintenance, air-conditioning and other departments for suggestions. The doctors, paramedics -- everyone was at a loss as we had never seen such a thing.”
Dr Singh circulated the picture of the skewered arm on social media groups, seeking suggestions. “One engineer suggested a cutter,” he said.
But the challenge was to protect the arm from the heat and sparks. “We first anaethetised the patient and put him on ventilation in the emergency room itself,” Dr Singh said.
The technicians initially suggested they slice through the gate with a hacksaw, a tool they felt more comfortable with.
“We got a hacksaw, but then the mechanics and engineers present said it would not work. So, we got an electric cutter,” the manager said.
Doctors said 20 bottles of saline water were put in the refrigerator and a fire extinguisher was brought. It took about 10 minutes to cut the metal gate off the spearheads.
“We took it over from there,” Dr Singh said. “The boy was taken to the operating theatre and the rods were extracted.”
The teen had also fractured his right arm from the fall.
“For two days, we replenished his blood and then a second surgery was performed to fix the other broken arm,” Dr Singh said.
“His condition is stable now and we are planning a skin graft.”