Handicapped for 23 years, a Sudanese war veteran walks again!

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

Robert, a Sudanese war veteran, who was confined to a wheel chair for 23 years with severe pain, deformity and suffering in his limb, is now walking again.

58-year-old Robert had suffered heavy artillery blast injury, which shattered the bones and tissues of his right lower limb.

He was treated at a hospital in Sudan for almost a year and underwent multiple surgeries and ended up having a gruesome deformity.

The bone infection with multiple pus pouring wounds on the leg did not allow the fracture to heal and his situation worsened every year.

He was unable to stand on his two feet that disrupted his day-to-day activities so much that at one point he had to crawl to move.

He consulted numerous surgeons and specialists in multiple tertiary hospitals in his home country who advised to have the limb amputated below the knee which he and his family could not accept.

He finally landed up at Thumbay University Hospital in Ajman and underwent an unconventional surgery wherein his ability to walk was restored.

And the medics who made this impossible task a possibility were Dr Faisal Ameer, Consultant Plastic and Reconstructive surgeon and Dr Amit Chaturvedi, Specialist Orthopedic surgeon and their expert team.

They performed 14 hours of complex procedure, a combination of wedge osteotomy and micro vascular tissue transfer surgery.

“When Robert came to us, our biggest task was to provide accurate treatment and confidence to him  as he was not in the best of his mental and physical state. As a result of which he had resorted to heavy smoking. This further complicated the situation because when the patient is a chronic smoker the success rate of micro vascular surgery is less and wound healing becomes difficult,” says Dr Faisal Ameer, Consultant Plastic and Reconstructive surgeon, Thumbay University Hospital.

After doing scans and tests the doctors concluded that salvage of the limb was possible and the deformity could be corrected.

The first step was to remove all infected and dead bone and then correct the deformity which was done by a procedure called wedge osteotomy and was fixed using a modular carbon fiber external fixation device.

The next big issue was coverage of wound and exposed bones. This was done by using tissue from the back and shoulder of the patient and transferring by micro vascular surgery. This is a complex, delicate and multistage combination of orthopedic and plastic surgery that requires high level of skill, magnification and specialised instrumentation.

Wedge Osteotomy helped the foot get in alignment with the leg to straighten the bone.

The modular carbon fiber device was then used externally to fix the leg, though rare this fixation device is light weight but so strong that it can bear patients weight and help him start walking.

Four months later the fixation was removed, the patient underwent extensive physiotherapy and finally stood up and started walking.

This was an emotional moment not only for the patient but also for the doctors and staff who took care of him.

Robert with a brimming smile on his face said that  finally when I met multispecialty team at Thumbay University Hospital they gave me a hope that I can walk again. Under the guidance of Dr. Ameer, what they have done is nothing short of a miracle and to me it means a lot. I'm surprised at what the team has been able to achieve. It was a tough fight, every day, every hour, but I knew one thing, if I want to walk again, I have to fight for it. With extensive care and physical therapy everything is getting better and better now.

His wounds have all healed now and the bone is uniting, soon making a full recovery.