Boy’s severed arm cannot be attached after bear attack
Tuesday, January 13, 2015, 17:25 GMT+7
Doctors in Ho Chi Minh City have failed to re-attach the right severed arm of a local 3-year-old boy to the stump after it was bitten off and seriously damaged by a 100-kg bear raised in a cage in the victim’s house.
>> Bear raised at home nips off 3-yr-old Vietnamese boy’s arm Dr. Phan Duc Minh Man, deputy head of the Pediatrics Orthopedics Department of thec, on Monday said the severed arm had seriously been damaged due to the biting so it could not be reconnected. The boy, Dung, was taken to the hospital at 6 pm on January 11, more than three hours after he lost his right arm to the bear raised in captivity in his house. As soon as receiving the boy and the separated arm, doctors performed an urgent surgery to reconnect the arm to the boy’s body but failed as the severed arm had been damaged seriously, Dr. Man said. Doctors were only able to handle the wounds at the arm stump, stitch them, and apply anti-infection measures, the doctor added. In the future, when the stump’s conditions are stable, an artificial arm can be fixed at the stump for aesthetic purposes, Dr. Man said. After receiving treatment and care, the boy was relatively in full possession of his senses and could talk, Dr. Man said on Monday afternoon. The terrible incident occurred in the boy’s house, located at 171 Duong Cong Khi Street in Hoc Mon District, at 3:30 pmSunday.
At that time, the boy was playing with his grandmother near the bear’s cage when the animal snapped at his right arm and pulled it into the cage through the opening between two metal bars and chewed on it.
As the boy screamed loudly and his grandmother shouted for help, a neighboring man rushed to the house to help the woman pull the little guy out of the bear’s grasp. At that time, the boy’s arm was in the animal’s mouth and was connected with his shoulder through a piece of skin only.
When the boy was rescued from the bear, his grandmother passed out.
Some neighbors then took him to a hospital for emergency treatment while others electrocuted the bear to take the boy’s arm out of the animal’s mouth.
His parents were away from home during the incident.
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