A 33-year-old man pierced by a bamboo pole all the way from the groin area to his arm pit had a narrow escape as he suffered no major damage to his internal organs even as doctors had feared the worst.
On October 2, Dashrath, a native of Kanpur landed up at the Safdarjung Hospital with an injury to his scrotal region and abdomen extending upto his chest.
"When asked how he got it, he told us that he was working at a construction site in Gurgaon when he fell from a height of around 12 feet and landed on a blunt-ended bamboo pole, which penetrated all the way from his groin area and exited through the right arm pit," said Dr Vimal Bhandari, consultant (Surgery) and Head of Kidney Transplant Department at Safdarjung Hospital.
Given the horrific nature of the incident, doctors suspected severe injury to his abdomen and other organs like liver, intestine, urinary bladder extending to his chest, injuring his lungs and ribs.
Dashrath had carried with himself the five feet long bamboo pole, which was pulled out of his body by one of his colleagues.
"The patient was bleeding from lower area, his abdomen was distended and he was restless. We performed an ultrasound which astonishingly revealed that there was no damage to his internal organs. But given the severity of the incident, we couldn't be sure and thus we opened his abdomen to check if there was any damage," said Dr Bhandari.
"The bamboo had made a tract from the scrotal region upto the axilla. But fortunately none of his organs had suffered any injury as the pole had pierced through the fat of the patient's body and the outer layer covering the organs," said Dr Aman Chopra, Resident doctor at Surgery department of Safdarjung Hospital.
After that Dashrath was treated for his wounds and was admitted in the hospital for 12 days and discharged.
"Such cases are one in a thousand. Dashrath was lucky that his organs were not at all injured given the dreadful nature of the accident," said Dr Ashish, Senior Resident (Surgery).
