Forearm successfully reimplanted at AIIMS Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar, 22/12/2023: A 25years young lady, Barsha Das from Krushnaprasad Block of Puri district has witnessed another life by Doctors of AIIMS Bhubaneswar. Team of Doctors from the national institute have successfully replanted the completely separated left forearm. The process took around 10 hours.

Barsha Das came to the emergency department of AIIMS Bhubaneswar on 9th Dec, 2022 at around 9 pm with traumatic amputation of left forearm below elbow. As per history given by patient, she was working at her home and her dupatta got stuck in the rice cutting machine along with her left hand at around 4 pm following which she was taken to local government hospital along with the amputated hand where primary treatment was given, bleeding was secured and dressing was done. The amputated part was wrapped in a ganjee pad and was kept in an ice bath by the person who attended her in the local hospital.

The patient was immediately planned for reimplantation and was taken up for surgery on the same night at around 11:30 pm by a Team lead by Dr. Sanjay Kumar Giri(Head of Burns & Plastic Surgery). The team consisted of Dr. Santanu Suba, Dr. Priyanka Pant, Dr. Akanksha Rajpoot, Dr. Vishnu from Plastic surgery department, Dr. Nikhil and Dr. Manjoy from Orthopaedics, Dr Jayant Mitra, Dr. Hrushikesh and Dr. Shailaja from Anaesthesia department assisted by nursing officer Babulal & Jaswant Singh.

At first, the team of Doctors took out the amputated part from the fridge and started bench dissection, all the vital structures identified and tagged 3 cm bone were shortened. Then the patient was taken into the operating room and anesthesia given. Amputated stumps opened and debridement was done and all the vital structures were isolated.

After that, the amputated part was attached to the body by first two bony fixations, then arterial circulation was established along with vein, followed by two major nerves that were repaired along with muscles and skin, said Dr. Sanjay Giri.

The surgery went up till 8 am in the morning and the patient was then shifted to ICU. After the tenth postoperative day, we took the patient to the operating room again as the skin around the elbow was not good. Under anaesthesia, we had removed all the devitalised skin and covered it with skin graft. Today it is around two weeks following the incident. At present the limb is viable, added Dr. Giri.

Today Executive Director Dr. Ashutosh Biswas visiting the young lady in the ward applauded the effort of Doctors of AIIMS for the heroic job. Dr. Biswas also praised Barsha for her bravery and assured her a prosperous future. Among others Medical Superintendent Dr. S N Mohanty, DDA(I/c) Rashmi Ranjan Sethy also praised the Doctors.