Doctors in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho have successfully performed a surgery to remove a bullet from the body of a veteran after it had been lying there for over half a century.

The veteran is Le Van Sang, a 71-year-old man living in Hoa Tien Commune, Vi Thanh City, located in the Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang, which is about 50 kilometers to the south of Can Tho City.

Sang participated in a battle in 1969, during which he was hit by a bullet in the right side of his back, his family said.

Due to the location of the bullet and the lack of medical supplies in wartime, military physicians could only remove parts of the bullet from his body at that time.

The rest of the bullet remained trapped in his lumbar muscles.

After the war ended, Sang’s family took him to different hospitals in Vietnam for several times, only to be told that it was not feasible to remove the remaining part as many complications, which could result in paralysis, would occur during the removal.

Sang lived with and suffered from pains caused by the bullet fragment for more than five decades.

As his backache became more severe recently, his family tried their luck one more time by taking the 71-year-old man to Can Tho Central General Hospital in the namesake city.

After an examination, neurosurgeons at the hospital were able to pinpoint the bullet piece, with a dimension of 1x2 cm, located in the retroperitoneal cavity, on the right at the level 5 of the lumbar vertebra in Sang’s body.

The doctors said Sang's surgery was a success and he can now move around normally.

He is set to be soon discharged from the hospital.

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