Road trauma victim saved

An imam at a local mosque is back on his feet again after a serious road accident that very nearly left his paralysed thanks to a delicate spine surgery conducted by surgeons of RAK Hospital.

The 54-year-old patient, Ahmad (name changed on request), suffered a life-threatening severe cervical spinal injury in an accident but an expert medical team was able to revive him from a stage where he was virtually on the brink of death. At the time he was brought to RAK Hospital, his right hand was completely paralysed, his cervical spine was jammed and there was weakness in his limbs, said Dr Tinku Jose Kurinsinkal, consultant neurosurgeon at RAK Hospital, who operated on Ahmad.

The Egyptian national had also suffered from high cervical slipped disc and his spinal cord was badly bruised and swollen.

Dr Kursinkal added: “The patient had already spent two days at another hospital, and was weak in the upper and lower limbs, suffering from severe pain in the neck and arm and was feeling dizzy.

“In such a condition, if a patient is left unattended for long, it can lead to lifelong paralysis in limbs as well as respiratory paralysis. In other words, he would have stopped breathing. Since time was of essence, we rushed him to surgery after immobilising the spine by hard cervical collar. Intubation of the patient for giving general anaesthesia was also a challenge because even a small manipulation of spine could lead to paralysis for life.”

The team then focused on correcting the instability in Ahmad’s spine. Because he had a slipped disc — which means that the disc keeping the two vertebras aligned had bulged — there was a lot of abnormal movement between the vertebras. The traumatic disc was removed millimetre by millimetre with a microscope and the spine was secured and stabilised using the zero-profile cage and screws.

Soon after the surgery — which took three hours — the patient started moving one finger in his right hand and, three days later, he was able to move the entire hand with ease. Now he can walk independently without any support. He will continue to further work on regaining normal movement at RAK Hospital’s rehabilitation centre.

While traumatic spinal cord injury can happen to anyone involved in an accident or fall, men are more susceptible to it than women. Young people in the ages of 16 to 30 years and adults older than 65 are more at risk as well as those suffering from arthritis or other bone diseases. If not addressed properly, the injury can result in complications in blood circulation, irregular bowel function, loss of sensation in parts of skin and respiratory issues, said Dr Kursinkal.

Dr Kursinkal also stressed on creating awareness on management of cervical spine injury, warning that mishandling of such patients could lead to further complications, and even death.

“Improper handling of a road traffic accident with respect of cervical spine cases can cause more harm than good. A number of times, the condition of people who have suffered from spine and neck injury deteriorate because of the way they are handled. Patient should be moved after strict cervical immobilisation. Unlike other injuries where blood is involved, a spine injury shows few obvious tell-tale signs. Therefore, it’s important that in cases of even a head injury, people should consider it a cervical spine issue until proven otherwise. Ahmad was fortunate that while being shifted to the hospital, utmost care was taken not to worsen his condition further.”

Dr Raza Seddiqi, CEO, Arabian Healthcare Group and Executive Director RAK Hospital, added: “I would like to congratulate the RAK Hospital team once again on their quick action that has helped someone get a new lease on life. Ever since the inception of our neuroscience department, we have done a number of spine and brain-related high-risk successful surgeries, not just on UAE residents, but patients have also flown in from GCC, US and African countries. We take immense pride in our highly skilled clinical team and cutting edge technology at par with hospitals in the West. Keeping in view the increasing number of spinal issues and injuries, we also launched the Neck and Back Clinic earlier this year.”

The patient expressed his immense gratitude to the hospital and the medical team who attended to him for their care and timely action.