JP Hospital Rourkela has been saving many lives of severe road accident patients and has become a lifeline for the people of Western Odisha. In another very critical road accident case, a 20 years old boy from the Kalunga area met with a severe bike accident in June last year ( 2022) and passed into a coma afterward. This boy was riding a bike that crashed head-on against another biker resulting in a near-fatal head injury. Family members had given up all hope of his survival. The victim was immediately taken to a government hospital and from there was referred to JP Hospital as the condition of the patient was deteriorating and there was a high risk to his life.
After the initial assessment, it was clear that the boy has suffered an injury on both sides of his brain, which happens very rarely and the outcome is often fatal in spite of the best treatment. In addition to blood accumulation on both sides, the brain was swelling dangerously inside the skull. The only option left to protect the brain in such cases is to remove the bone to make space for swelling, but in this case, removing bone from both sides will leave the brain unprotected below the scalp. However as this was the only option to save the life of this patient, immediate surgery was planned and the patient was admitted under Dr.Susanta Kumar Patro JP Consultant Neuro Surgeon.
In the meantime, his heart function, respiration, and other vital functions were being maintained by a life-support system supervised by a team of JP Specialist Critical Care team comprising Dr. Debasish Panda ( HOD Critical Care), Dr.Arun Kumar Sahu (Critical Care), Dr.R Pradeep Kumar (HOD Cardiac Science), Dr. Sipun Dash ( Critical Care), Dr.Sashmita Padhy ( JP Senior Anesthetist) and the nursing & other paramedical staff.
This rare situation of bleeding with dangerous swelling on both sides of the brain was operated on in two sittings by Dr. Susanta Kumar Patro, seeing the conditions of the patient. In the first sitting, blood clots were removed from one side of the brain with the removal of bone from the side, and in the second sitting same procedure was repeated for the other side, with the help of Dr. R N Mahapatra Senior Consultant JP Neuroscience Department.
The patient was kept in ICU for over a month as the patient required prolonged life support. JP Neuro team removed the part of the skull to allow space for the swollen brain and to allow further space to the brain for the impending swelling, which continues for 1-2 weeks after the surgery. The removed part of the skull was preserved in abdominal fat, below the skin, with the plan to replace back to its original sites after the healing of the brain. This shifting of a portion of the skull is called an autologous graft, or autograft, and involves the transport of bone from a donor site to another location in the same patient. It is considered by many to be the gold standard of bone grafting, as it provides all biological factors required for functional graft.
After almost more than six months of medications & treatment by the specialist JP team, the patient started responding and finally, in Feb 2023, the portion of the bone which was preserved abdomen fat was taken out and placed at its original site, giving the head normal shape and protective cover to the brain. After another month of observation and medications, the patient was marked to resume his normal day-to-day activities and now the patient is leading a normal life. The parent of this patient, treated under the BSKY card, was tearful while sharing his son’s treatment experience and thanked the JP doctors’ team for saving his son’s life & the Odisha Govt for providing the BSKY card due to which this patient could be treated without any financial burden. Dr. Susanta Kumar Patro says “This is one of the rare & risky surgeries which I have performed. Thanks to the trust of the patient and the blessing of the almighty, we could save his life. We are very pleased with the outcome.”
