Miraculous recovery for worker impaled after fall

KALYAN: A construction worker who was impaled on a bamboo stick after a fall from the fourth-floor of an under-construction building will soon be discharged from a Kalyan hospital, where doctors conducted a nine-hour surgery to save his life.
Tarikul Alam, 21, who is from West Bengal, was rushed to hospital with the bamboo passing through the right side of his torso on April 28. "He was crying out in pain, but passed out after reaching the nearby Ayush Hospital," said one of his friends who accompanied him to hospital.
Scans showed the bamboo had pierced four organs - liver, the right kidney, part of the intestines and a lung. As there was a lot of bleeding, the doctors decided to put Alam on a ventilator and start surgery right away.
General surgeon Dr Shashank Patil, who led the surgery, said the immediate concern was to stop the bleeding that was worse due to the trauma to the liver. "We first stopped the bleeding from his liver, stitched up the kidney, and then fixed his intestine and lung,'' he said, adding that Alam needed five units of blood during the surgery.
Alam also had head injuries, and was in coma for four days. On regaining consciousness, he slowly started showing "movement", said intensivist Dr Amit Botkundle, who was part of the ICU team that managed him for a month.
At the moment, Alam is able to sit up on his own, talk and eat normally. The hospital has charged minimal rates to create awareness that such super-specialty surgeries can now be conducted in Kalyan itself, said Dr Rajesh Raju of Ayush Hospital.
Alam is awaiting discharge in the next few days. "While falling, I had thought I wouldn't survive. I don't remember much of what happened thereafter, but after hearing about it from others, I feel it was a miracle," he said.
He is grateful to the doctors and for the concessional care. But his immediate concern now is to start earning again so that he can send money back to his family.