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12-year-old Suleiman Hassan at Hadassah Medical Centre, after doctors reattached his head to his neck following a collision with a motorist (Hadassah Medical Centre)Surgeons reattach boy’s head after he was “internally decapitated” by motorist while cycling
Surgeons at a Jerusalem hospital successfully managed to reattach a young cyclist’s head to his neck, after the 12-year-old suffered an “internal decapitation” when he was hit by a motorist while riding his bike.
Suleiman Hassan, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was airlifted following the collision to the Hadassah hospital’s trauma unit in Ein Kerem, just outside Jerusalem, where it was determined that the sudden impact had severely damaged the ligaments and muscle holding the base of his skull, leaving it detached from the top vertebrae of his spine (though the skin and major blood vessels remained intact).
The injury, commonly known as internal or orthopaedic decapitation, is extremely rare, while survival rates are low. A 2021 study into the injury in children and adolescents found that 55 percent of sufferers do not survive the initial impact, transport to hospital, surgery, or recovery.
> Hit-and-run driver ran red light "at speed" and hit 10-year-old cyclist, avoids jail
12-year-old Suleiman underwent several hours of highly complex surgery in early June, with doctors fusing the base of his skull to the spinal column, using screws, rods, plates, and potentially bone grafts.
He was recently discharged from hospital and will continue to be monitored by staff in the coming months, the Times of Israel reports.
“We fought for the boy’s life,” Dr Ohad Einav, an orthopaedic specialist who carried out the procedure, told the newspaper. “The procedure itself is very complicated and took several hours. The injury is extremely rare, but we do know that because children between ages four and 10 have heads that are large in relation to their bodies, they are more susceptible than adults.
“The fact that such a child has no neurological deficits or sensory or motor dysfunction, and that he is functioning normally and walking without an aid after such a long process, is no small thing.”
Following the successful surgery, Suleiman’s father told the hospital’s medical staff: “I will thank you all my life for saving my dear only son. Bless you all. Thanks to you he regained his life even when the odds were low and the danger was obvious.
“What saved him were professionalism, technology, and quick decision-making by the trauma and orthopaedics team. All I can say is a big thank you.”
Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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11 comments
Meanwhile . . . . . .
https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/-tre...
What a sick person you must be.
Why are they a sick person?
Anyone who is paying attention knows that the Israeli government are an extreme right wing organisation with no regard to the human rights of Palestinians. When I suggested to an Israeli friend of mine that I understood their army is very well trained he replied, "how hard is it shooting children throwing stones!".
That doesn't make every Israeli a bad person nor every Palestinian a saint. The Road.cc report shows the good side of life in that region.
Erm... So 'Birmingham is a dump' is a sick person for linking to a Save the Children report about the Israeli military holding children? Are you opposed to Save the Children for some reason? or do you think that all Palestinians must be terrorists? or that the Israeli state cannot ever behave badly?
I assumed Roulereo was referencing the perpetrators in the article, rather than BirminghamisaDump.
A charitable assumption...
As for the original post I think it would be fairer to say "why choose to make this point on a story about a crash, on a cycling website - what's the relevance?"
No doubt like essentially everything relating to the region there's no middle ground; if you draw attention to one side (especially "out of context") that's enemy propaganda etc.
I wouldn't disagree that there is a massive disparity in opportunity, access to resources (including justice) etc. between the two "sides" there though.
Anyway, back to something far more soluble and less contentious like trans people in sport, achieving "mass cycling" and better road safety in the UK, helmets etc.
And another thing. Just because somebody has trained for years and years towards their chosen profession doesn't mean they are more knowledgable than a layman like me. Hot buttered crumpets for supper. Yay!
But how's the bike?
And another thing. I'm very knowledgable in just about everything. Most people in the medical profession, and other professions, should realise I know much more than them about everything. I can even make my own sandwiches and tie my own shoelaces
Are you a very stable genius?
Yes. Yes I am