The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Chisel pierces boy’s skull, removed

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Wednesday, Apr 16, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Chisel pierces boy’s skull, removed

Special Correspondent

“It was a difficult procedure because the motor cortex was very close”

COIMBATORE: A. Lingeswaran (13) has had a providential escape.

The iron handle of a chisel pierced through his skull, but got lodged just a couple of centimetres away from the motor cortex in the brain that enables people to move their limbs.

According to Lingeswaran, a boy hurled the tool at him on April 9 while playing near a tea estate at Coonoor in the Nilgiris.

After first aid at the government hospital at Coonoor, the boy, who was staying with his grandfather, was brought to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital that night, the chisel still sticking out of the head.

After an X-ray and computed tomography scan to locate the angle of the five centimetres of the handle that had got in, a team of doctors, led by neurosurgeon G. Murugesan, removed it.

“It was a very difficult procedure because the motor cortex was only one or two centimetres away.

“We had to be very careful not to cause any damage to it while trying to remove the chisel,”

Dr. Murugesan told reporters on Tuesday, in the presence of Dean Hemalatha Ganapathy and Medical Superintendent V. Kumaran.

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