A team of six doctors at Nanavati Hospital performed a five-hour microvascular surgery on 30-year-old Malad resident Ankush Shinde's wrist after it was nearly severed in a freak accident
A five-hour surgery by two teams of doctors at Santacruz’s Nanavati Hospital, saved the nearly severed wrist of a 30-year-old Malad resident. On Thursday, Ankush Shinde, who works as a domestic help, was discharged from the hospital and, though his right arm was in bandages, doctors say he should gain use of it in five months.
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Dr Anshuman Manaswi (middle), plastic surgeon at Nanavati, calls the surgery on Ankush Shinde’s hand one of his most challenging
A freak fall
On July 3, Shinde had left his fourth-floor home at Nayantara building in Madh, Malad, around 9 am when he slipped. Doctors say, in a bid to prevent the fall, Shinde held on to the iron railing that runs along the building’s staircase. The railing had a sharp edge. Shinde’s entire body weight fell on his right wrist and the sharp edge cut into it, nearly severing it.
Arjun, Shinde’s 35-year-old neighbour, heard him yell and came to his rescue, rushing him to the Santacruz West hospital.
Dr Anshuman Manaswi, plastic surgeon at Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital, says, “In such cases, maintaining blood supply in the body is the first challenge since excessive loss of blood can be fatal. We had to strap the forearm to control the loss of blood.” Dr Manaswi adds that the hand was hanging by the skin and his challenge was to reconnect the tendons, nerves and blood vessels. “We needed to work on that immediately as the blood supply to his fingers had been cut off,” said Dr Manaswi. This procedure took an hour-and-a-half and was completed by 7 pm. A second microvascular surgery was conducted later on the same day. A team of six doctors, including orthopaedic surgeons, worked for five hours and fixed the wrist bone joint and reconnected the flexor tendons, nerves as well as both the radial and ulnar arteries which connect the forearm to the arm and supply blood to the fingers.
Relieved, grateful
The treatment is going to cost Shinde Rs 1.25 lakh, but Shinde is only grateful to the doctors who saved his hand, and livelihood.
“My first thought after the accident was of my family’s sustenance. With a severed wrist I wouldn’t be able to earn a living,” says Shinde after being discharged. “Now, I have regained movement in my fingers and doctors have said that within six months, I’ll be able to use my wrist like before.”