Bricklayer who landed from storey building saved by doctors

A bricklayer's life has reportedly been saved after he was successfully operated upon by a group of surgeons at Federal Medical Centre Owerri in Imo.

The 35-year-old, according to Vanguard, accidentally fell off from a storey building while at work and landed with the left lateral anterior neck on a hammer standing on the ground with the handle facing upwards.

The bricklayer's life was saved by emergency response of Surgeons on Monday, November 11, 2019. [Vanguard] Pulse Nigeria

Describing the awful incident, the Senior Registrar on call in Ear, Nose, Throat, Head and Neck Surgeon Ear, Dr. Ibekwe Nnaemeka, stated that the sledgehammer pierced through the bricklayer's anterior and exited through his posterior.

Nnaemeka said, "however, as God may have it, he was not in any respiratory distress and vitals are relatively stable on presentation."

Narrating how the bricklayer's life was saved, Nnaemeka said he quickly called out the 2 ENT Consultants, and at the same time raised alarm as he invited the Vascular Surgeons, Burns and plastic, Traumatologist / Spine Surgeons, Anaesthetist, and Theatre Peri-op Nurses who acted promptly to save the man's life.

Nnaemeka's words were; “necessary urgent Investigations were done, thanks to our Med. Laboratory Scientist Friends, who acted promptly as the urgency demands, gave us 4 units of screened / cross-matched blood and provided the results needed as fast as possible.

“Within a short while, all the invited Surgeons stormed the Casualty, we quickly wheeled the patient to the theatre and Neck Exploration with foreign body removal was done.

“Miraculous intra-Op Findings: The hammer neatly passed *medial* to the Carotid vessel and IJV and *lateral* to the Oesophagus, Trachea and the Vertebral column."

The doctor added that the patient who had been transferred to the ICU by the Anaesthetist for observation, is stable and doing well.