Doctors at Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) recently removed a sewing needle from the neck of a 19-year-old girl through a complicated surgery.
According to a release from Dean A. Nirmala, the girl was admitted in the casualty ward on November 2 with a cut injury on her neck.
Despite being treated for the laceration on her neck, the girl still complained of pain.
Following this, the doctors performed a computed tomography (CT) scan of her neck.
The CT scan revealed that a sewing needle, about 7.5 cm long, was lodged between C4-C5 vertebrae in her spinal column. The object had also penetrated her trachea and was adjacent to her right vertebral artery, the release said.
As the needle was lodged between complex neural and vascular structures, a team of experts from CMCH comprising ENT surgeon, neurosurgeons, vascular surgeons and anaesthetists performed the surgery and removed the needle.
Counselling
No neurological or vascular damage was found following the surgery and the girl’s voice and breathing were normal post-surgery. As the injury was self-inflicted, the doctors also provided psychiatric evaluation and counselling, Dr. Nirmala said in the release.
(Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104 and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050.)