Arm Amputated By Text Message
Technology to the rescue. A doctor in the DR Congo used text messages from another doctor to perform a procedure he had never performed before. How did the kid’s arm get injured in the first place? Check out the last line of this quote from the article.
A British doctor volunteering in DR Congo used text message instructions from a colleague to perform a life-saving amputation on a boy.
Vascular surgeon David Nott helped the 16-year-old while working 24-hour shifts with medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Rutshuru.
The boy’s left arm had been ripped off and was badly infected and gangrenous.
Mr Nott, 52, from London, had never performed the operation but followed instructions from a colleague who had.
The surgeon, who is based at Charing Cross Hospital in west London, said: “He was dying. He had about two or three days to live when I saw him.”
It is not clear how the boy was injured. It was suggested that he had been bitten by a hippopotamus while fishing, but Mr Nott also heard that he had been caught in crossfire between government and rebel forces.
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