An iron rod penetrated through a skull crossing from side to side was removed from the head of an Israeli man In Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Karem, outside Jerusalem.
Kamel Abdel Rahman, 46, from the Arab town of Abu Ghosh was severely injured four weeks ago. Recently he discharged in good health from the hospital after a series of surgeries to repair the damage. “The rod just went through, one side to the other,” recalled one of the doctors.
“On a Friday lunchtime, I went with my brothers to check up how the apartment I’m building for my family is coming along,” Abdel Rahman, told Israel21C. “As I walked around the construction site I slipped and fell from the second floor of the apartment to the first floor, with my head on iron rods.”
“I did not feel any pain at all. I do not know how to explain it,” Abdel Rahman added. “I was conscious and didn’t feel any pain,” he says. “When I saw the expressions and the shock on the faces of my family, and I heard them shouting, I understood that the situation must be serious.”
Seeing that his brothers were frozen due to the horror event, he started handling the situation. He ordered them to call the ambulance and the firefighters to come over and cut the iron rod so he can be evacuated to the hospital.
In the emergency room, the doctors conducted various imaging tests to find out where the rod was positioned, what it had hit and whether it could be removed.”
After they ensured he was breathing, they analyzed the wound. The rod had entered between the two important arteries that supply blood to the brain and did not appear to damage them. The doctors were concerned wither there was a rupture they did not see because the rod was blocking it. If the rod was removed and the artery started bleeding it would cause sudden death.
While Dr. Samuel Moscovici, of the Neurosurgery Department, was removing the rod out of the head, top nose and throat doctors analyzed the pole’s penetration near the ear. After the rod was out, Prof. Jose Cohen, head of the Endovascular Neurosurgery Unit started a brain catheterization. Unfortunately, the arteries in the brain were damaged.
The next surgery conducted after the head swelling reduced. It lasts 10 hours, during which they repaired the leakage of the cerebrospinal fluid and used fat taken from the patient’s abdomen to hermetically close the skull base.
After only two weeks, Abdel Rahman woke up. Everything was working properly. His life was saved and he was released home in good health.
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