Thanks to plastic surgery, bear attack victim gets face back

Visakhapatnam: A plastic surgeon from Visakhapatnam conducted a reconstruction surgery on a 48-year- old man from Odisha whose face was mauled by three bears. It took two operations, a 10-hour-long microsurgery and a six-hour-long facial reconstruction surgery to put in place the scalp, cheek bone and nose of P. Narsimhulu which were lost in the attack.

The incident happened on August 24 when Narsimhulu had gone to his cashew farm early in the morning morning, at Jhatti Padara village, Brahmpur district of Odisha when a female bear and its two cubs attacked him.
Narsimhulu was first taken to a local hospital from where he was sent to a private hospital at Vizag for treatment.

The plastic surgeon, Dr Anjali Saple who was assisted by Dr P.V. Ramona, said, “Bears usually attack eyes and face first. In this case there was no skin on the victim’s scalp leaving the skull bear. Floor of the eye and nasal bone along with a part of the skull was shattered leaving the brain.” Immediate action was taken to cover the bare skull and exposed brain with muscle obtained from the victim’s back to prevent infection. This was done through microsurgery wherein blood vessels of the new muscle are connected with the existing ones on the face, called anastomosis.

After this and healing of a blood clot in the brain, the victim was kept on ventilator for a few days till he was stabilised.

This was followed by facial reconstruction wherein bone graft was done by taking bone from maxillary sinus along with covering of mauled nose with skin from the forehead. Narsimhulu will be discharged in a couple of days from Seven Hills hospital, said Dr Saple.