AIIMS removes six inch-long knife from man’s back in complex surgery

Doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences have successfully removed a six inch-long knife from a man’s back following a stabbing incident in a challenging surgery. The 30-year old man from Karnal in Haryana reportedly sustained this injury during a stabbing incident while defending his jewellery store from robbery on 12 July. “The patient came to the emergency of the hospital in the late evening the same day with the knife still impaled in his back.The surgical procedure of posterior decompression with removal of knife and posterior fixation was done on July 13,” AIIMS Trauma Centre chief Dr Kamran Farooque said. The Karnal resident was stabbed at around 2 pm and before reaching the trauma centre at around 10 pm, he had already visited two hospitals for medical treatment. Due to patient’s  deteriorating condition and the intricacy of the case, he was referred to AIMS, Farooque said. He further mentioned that upon his arrival, the patient was conscious, and his vital parameters were stable. “It was a challenging case as he was stabbed in the back and therefore, the position of the patient which we normally keep during resuscitation or during imaging and surgery is supine. But in this case, the patient could not have lied on the back because any movement of the knife could have caused further injury to the spinal cord,” Dr Amit Gupta from the department of surgery said. “The blade of the knife was just 2 or 3 millimetres away from the great vessel aota which carries blood from the heart. At least, six inches of the knife was inside,” he said. According to Farooque, the CT scan revealed that the knife had penetrated the vertebral column, fracturing the bone. Additionally, it had pierced the spinal canal, which holds the spinal cord, and further into the body of the vertebra. “The knife was taken out with very careful dissection around the spinal cord. The covering of the spinal cord was repaired and also stabilised the vertebral column by rods,” he explained. The doctor further mentioned that the patient conditions are improving.