The Boy Who Survived an Arrow in His Head

Last month, a 15-year-old teenager was wheeled into a hospital in Mumbai with an arrow sticking out of his head. The youth, Brijesh Sahani, had been playing cricket at a ground which had a group of archers closeby in the midst of a practice session. Sahani was accidentally shot by an archer from a distance of around 70 metres when he had gone to collect a ball near the target range.

“It was,” as Dr Vinod Rambal, the neurosurgeon who tended to Sahani, says, “nothing like I had ever seen. And, remarkably, the boy was conscious and aware of what was happening. He was even pointing to the arrow lodged in his head.” Sahani, the son of an autorickshaw driver from UP, had miraculously escaped death. The metal arrow had a circumference of 6.5 mm. It had penetrated the teenager’s frontal lobe on the left side of the brain and emerged from the other side of the head without damaging any important blood vessel or nerve. The doctors had to perform a delicate surgery and although the operation was successful, it was feared that the accident would impact the youngster’s ability to speak and his sense of navigation at the very least. After a few days of the surgery when the teenager developed a meningitis infection, his doctors feared the worst.

But two weeks since the accident, Sahani has been discharged from the hospital. Save for the slight slur in his speech and difficulty in moving the fingers of his left hand, which the doctors say will improve with physiotherapy, his recovery has been complete.

Sahani’s father Parasnath says, “For the family, this recovery has been a wonderful miracle. We were worried he wouldn’t survive.” Rambal says Sahani’s recovery has been nothing short of extraordinary. “Had there been a slight deviation of even a few millimetres when the arrow hit him, he could have very easily died or forever remained in a coma.”

About The Author

Lhendup G Bhutia

•