USS of the Ruptured AtriumAn emergency cardiac surgery took place recently at RIPAS Hospital which saved a 4 year old boy after sustaining a blunt injury to his chest. Dr William Chong, one of 2 Bruneian's Cardiothoracic Specialist took about 1 hour to repair the boy's torn Right Atrium (one of the chambers in the heart) which leaked blood into the pericardial space and resulted in a cardiac tamponade.
The incident occurred just as the family was preparing to go for Friday prayers when the young boy slipped after climbing over an unsuspectedly unsecured ceramic sink at home and fell backwards bringing the weight of the ceramic sink that landed on top of him. According to family members he was under the sink for a good 15 minutes before family members were alarmed and after taking him to casualty department at RIPAS, he was unresponsive for 5 minutes before emergency duty doctors manage to resuscitate and Dr Lim Kian Soon, radiologist on-call diagnosed the pericardial tamponade.
Dr William Chong and the surgical team on call took the boy to theatre immediately and exposed the heart through a midline sternotomy before discovering the boy had sustained laceration through the right atrium and was losing blood by the seconds. The torn appendage was sutured and the pericardial tamponade was evacuated within minutes.
This accident highlighted how important it was to consider intra-thoracic injuries on an unsuspectedly innocent blunt injuries especially to chest and what a difference adequate resuscitation and definitive treatment can do to save someone's life. Thank you to our emergency services and well done Dr William Chong!
