Delhi: A woman, all of 23, has been lying unconscious for the last 7 months in Delhi AIIMS’ trauma centre. She had suffered multiple head injuries in a road accident while she was pregnant for about one and a half months. In a miraculous incident, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl last week in the same hospital that she is admitted in! The doctors in Delhi AIIMS are as astonished as her family members are!
Dr.Deepak Gupta, a neurosurgeon in AIIMS who has been treating her since her admission said, “A 23-year-old young woman came to AIIMS trauma centre on April 1, 2022 at 4.30 am after sustaining a severe head injury the previous night when she was travelling with her husband on a 2-wheeler (in Bulandshahar, UP). Both husband and wife were not wearing helmets at the time of the accident. The husband did not sustain any head injury while the wife sustained a very severe head injury, she fell down as she was sitting sideways and was without a helmet”.
The doctor further added, “She was initially treated at Abdullah Hospital, Bulandshar, and later referred to AIIMS trauma centre. She was married six weeks back and was 40 days pregnant at the time of the accident (pregnancy test was positive). She was unconscious on arrival and had evidence of severe brain injury with acute subdural hematoma inside her brain. She was immediately put on ventilator support and taken up for emergency surgery (decompressive craniectomy where part of her skull bone was removed to decrease pressure inside her swollen damaged brain). She underwent a total of 5 neurosurgical operations in the last 7 months during hospitalization”.
The condition of the woman after giving birth to the baby has not changed. She is still unconscious but she is responding to certain stimuli at times and breathing without ventilator support. The doctor says that she might still take a few years to regain consciousness fully with continuous rehabilitation support. While the doctors suggested that there were no complications to her pregnancy after she fell unconscious, the decision to terminate the pregnancy was left to the family. They decided not to terminate the pregnancy and continue with the same.
The doctors also urged people to be very careful while driving so that such incidents do not occur further! Urging people to wear helmets, the doctor said, “Helmets reduce the risk of death and head injury by 50-60 percent. With helmets, in-hospital deaths are reduced by 16 percent, cervical spine injuries are lesser and facial injuries are also lesser by 12-16 percent”. The baby weighed 2.5 Kg at the time of birth and does not show any complications yet!