Doctors in Bengaluru remove 3-cm-long bullet stuck in Yemeni man's head for 18 years

A 29-year-old Yemeni man, who lived with a 3-cm-long bullet in his head for nearly 18 years, had last week got the metal removed at a private hospital in Karnataka’s Bengaluru. However, the bullet had left the man, a father of two, deaf The bullet was lodged deep inside the Yemeni man’s left temporal bone and he used to regularly witness chronic headaches and persistent ear discharges. The man told ToI he got severely injured on his head by a bullet that was fired during clashes between two warring groups when he was 10-year-old. He further said he was bleeding profusely and was rushed to a hospital where the healthcare officials only cleaned the wound and “did not bother to remove the bullet.” The bullet had pierced through the ear and the entrance of the ear narrowed leading to puss discharge. The metal was partly exposed in the ear passage, while its inner end was lodged in the bone, which did not allow the wound to heal. The constant accumulation of puss led to repeated ear infections which resulted in frequent headaches which the man often complained of. The man grew up in a village in Yemen and has six brothers and three sisters. His father was a farmer and mother a homemaker. The family had a farm close to their house and the man used to help his father with watering and manuring the plants. He would also run errands. Daunting surgery The man had come to Bengaluru with much hope after some of his friends suggested him to visit the city and get himself treated in Aster hospital. Though he has returned to Yemen and is said to be doing well now, doctors at the hospital found the surgery daunting. “The bullet was lodged inside his ear, deep inside the temporal bone in the left side and very close to the vital vascular structures, which made surgery challenging. Because of the proximity of the surgical site to the vital vascular structures, the patient was at risk of major bleeding when the bullet was removed,” the report quoted Dr Rohit Udaya Prasad, lead consultant, ENT and cochlear implant surgery at Aster RV as saying. To find out the exact location of blood vessels and bullet, the surgical team opted for CT angiography instead of an MRI. “We used a basic two-dimensional X-ray with which we found out the exact location of the bullet,” Dr Prasad said. “We went about it meticulously and managed to dislodge the bullet from its surrounding attachments and mobilise it quickly. The surgery was uneventful and the patient didn’t have any major bleeding,” he further said. The doctor even said the surgical team was prepared for any eventuality. The procedure has relieved his pain and has even partially restored his hearing. Also, before leaving India for Yemen, the man left behind the bullet to avoid detention at the airport.