Docs rejoin 3-yr-old's leg after freak accident

When timely medical help was hard to come by during the earlier phase of the lockdown, doctors at Sparsh Hospital here have helped a three-year-old girl from Andhra Pradesh to stand on her own after she was on the verge of losing her leg in a freak accident.

On May 1, the child was playing on a swing at her home in the remote village of Naayanavenapalli, Singamanamala Mandalam, Anantapur district. Even as her father was mowing the grass with a sharp machete near the swing, she accidentally slipped and fell on the machete, injuring her legs. She suffered a near-total amputation of her left leg just below the knee joint.

The distraught father rushed the girl to Bengaluru, 320 km away. A team of orthopaedics and plastic surgeons at Sparsh Hospital successfully performed the reconstructive surgery on the leg. In big relief to the family, the child has now been shifted out of the paediatric ICU.

According to the doctors, in cases like this one, the amputated part should be wrapped with a moist cloth, sealed in a plastic bag and put in a mixture of ice and water. The part should not be in contact with ice.