Vietnamese doctors have successfully operated on a 69-year-old patient who suffered a fractured lumbar vertebrae. The patient’s case was previously refused by U.S. doctors due to anesthesia problems, local media said Thursday.

T.T.H, 69, was hospitalized in a state of intense back pain due to fractures in her L1, L2, L3, and L4 vertebrae and needed spine surgery instrumentation.

The overseas Vietnamese was successfully anesthetized and operated on by doctors at the Saigon ITO Hospital in HCMC when she came back to the country during the Lunar New Year holidays.

Initial examination results showed that the patient’s laryngeal structure and neck is short, which interfered with the intubation procedure during the surgery.

In 2005, T.T.H’s case was refused by U.S. doctors due to anesthesia and intubation difficulties.

Le Van Chung, head of the department of Anesthesiology, Resuscitation at Saigon ITO Hospital, said that the patient has a special, different airway structure, news website VnExpress reported.

Vietnamese doctors decided to perform endotracheal tube placement using a flexible catheter, which was put under the patient’s tongue, while she was still awake.

“In a normal case, the patient is anesthetized before the endotracheal tube placement. In this case, we have to keep her awake so she can still breathe in case the placement had trouble,” Chung explained.

Le Chi Dung, head of the Scientific Council of the hospital, said that the case was complicated so the team was very careful in terms of backup plans and the preparation process, not to mention that the patient has hypertension.

The patient, who underwent a four-hour operation, is currently in the postoperative monitoring process and has had her pain reduced significantly, according to VnExpress.

With the same method of using a flexible catheter, the hospital also successfully operated on a 42-year-old man who suffered a rare form of ankylosing spondylitis last week.