A patient’s leg severed by a lawn mower was revived

06/12/2021 14:06

On November 8^th, Viet Duc University Hospital (VDUH) successfully performed the surgery to replant a severed leg for a patient whose leg was amputated by a lawn mower. That is the case of Mr. L.V.T (38 years old) from Van Chan, Yen Bai.

 

The patient and his family recalled the tragic accident that happened while he was working. The blade of the lawn mower collided with the trunk of a tree, bounced off the mower and then bounced back into his leg, completely severing his right foot. The patient was transferred to VDUH 6 hours from the time of the accident. After examining and assessing the injury by a multidisciplinary team on duty, plastic surgeons in collaboration with orthopedic surgeons performed an emergency surgery for patient. Debridement, cleaning, and removal of foreign bodies in his crushed lower leg, then fixed the fractured bones and sutured the severed tendons were performed by orthopedic team. After that, plastic team anastomosed blood vessels and nerves under a surgical microscope. As a result, the patient’s leg was successfully reattached.

 

Tran Thi Thanh Huyen, MD, MSc – Department of Maxillofacial, Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery, who directly performed the reattachment surgery, shared: Mr. T was admitted to the hospital with a severed wound in the lower third of his right leg. After his fractured bones were fixed and severed tendons were sutured, the patient had his nerves and blood vessels anastomosed by microsurgery technique. During surgery, many metal foreign bodies and dirty bark were found in the wound, so surgeons had to ensure that the wound was cleaned but soft tissue was not over-debrided to maintain the function of the leg after surgery. In addition, the reattachment of blood vessels and nerves by microsurgery technique (surgery under the microscope with very fine tools and sutures) is a routine procedure at VDUH.

 

 

Immediately after the surgery, the blood vessels were flowed smoothly, the foot became warm and pink, and the pulse was clearly palpable. Currently, 1 week after the surgery, the patient’s suffered no complications, the leg is rosy in color, the patient’s health is recovering very well. The patient continues to be monitored and cared for in the ward. In the near future, the patient will still have to undergo rehabilitation training to be able to regain most of the functions of the leg.

 

According to Mr.Nguyen Hong Ha, MD,PhD, Assoc. Prof, Head of the Department of Maxillofacial, Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery, every year VDUH receives hundreds of cases of patients with severed body parts such as limbs, scalp, lips, nose, ears, penis due to many different causes. In which, there is no shortage of rare, special cases such as patients having both their arms or legs severed or amputations in combination with other severe trauma situations. These are complicated cases, because amputation of an arm or a leg is a serious injury that does not only threaten the patient’s life, but also seriously affect normal activities later. So there were many times the hospital had to mobilize many microsurgery teams to work over night to fix bones, suture tendons, and anastomose blood vessels and nerves with microsurgery to save severed limbs or body parts as well as the patient’s life. Nguyen Hong Ha PhD, Assoc. Prof further shared: amputation of body parts is a type of injury commonly seen in developing countries. Therefore, everybody has a responsibility to create and maintain safe work environments to avoid such unfortunate accidents that may occur