Doctors have revealed a bitter sweet case of a man who survived a gunshot to the head from close range.
The 29-year-old farmer from the Greek island of Crete was shot with a handgun at a range of about 10 meters.
The bullet shattered as it tore through the left hemisphere of his brain lodging near the back of his skull.
He was rushed to hospital in a ‘comatose state’ an hour after being shot, with doctors performing emergency surgery where they removed part of his skull to retrieve the bullet fragments. Some could not be extracted.
The above picture is a scan of the man’s skull highlighting the path of the bullet (arrow) and the point where the bullet was found lodged (end of the arrow)
Less than three percent of people survive a gunshot wound to the head, estimates suggest.
Of these, even fewer fully recover from their injuries and continue living as they did before suffering the shot.
Two-and-a-half years after being shot in the head, the man is still alive — but he is no longer able to speak in more than ‘monosyllabic utterances’ and struggles to understand complex language.
He is also suffering from involuntary spasms on the right side of his body, and difficulties moving muscles on the left side.
Nonetheless, researchers said he still has emotions and is able to signal his desires with sounds and his facial muscles — such as wanting to go home.
Family members also told doctors they were sure that he remembered previous events, although evidence for this was not provided.
The bullet pierced the left side of his brain — which is involved in speech and processing language and directing movements on the right side of the body.
The right side, which is involved in emotions and problem solving and movements on the left side, was unharmed.
These two scans, also revealed in the report, show the path of the bullet (left, black arrow) and also the bullet’s entry point into the brain (right, black arrow head)
The case was revealed in the American Journal of Case Reports by doctors at the General University Hospital of Heraklion, Greece.
It was not clear where the injury occurred or why the man had been shot; whether it was an accident or an intentional attack.
Unlike the rest of Greece, where strict gun laws almost entirely block ownership, on Crete there is a strong gun-owning tradition — with one local report saying of the island: ‘Crete and guns go together’.
The man was also reported to be right-handed, and to have been shot with a bullet traveling at low velocity — or at a speed slower than 300 meters per second.
Most people who are shot in the head die almost instantly either from shock or because critical functions are disrupted.
An area of the brain at its base controls actions like breathing and the heartbeat, with these ceasing if it is damaged — and death following shortly after.
In rare cases, however, patients do survive if damage to the brain does not impact critical structures and they rapidly receive medical care.
This was the case with the patient who was injured in the left hemisphere, with the area linked to language but not controlling critical bodily functions.
This means it is possible to survive an injury to the area, although individuals will likely be disabled for the rest of their lives.
Doctors said they were revealing the case to show how the brain can recover after receiving an injury to the left hemisphere.
In this case, the man was reported to have suffered extensive damage to the left cerebral, and left cerebellar hemisphere — linked to controlling movements.
Doctors immediately sutured the wound and performed surgery to ease pressure on the brain and remove shards of the bullet.
This was done via an emergency craniectomy — a surgery involving removing part of the skull to relieve pressure on the brain.
He was hospitalized for two-and-a-half-months, during which time he also had a cranioplasty — or partial skull reconstruction — before being moved to a patient rehabilitation center for 18 months.
Two years after the injury, he was brought back to the hospital for a check-up.
Doctors diagnosed him with severe global aphasia, or severe communication difficulties leaving him struggling to comprehend language.
But they did find that he was able to follow basic instructions, such as understanding who to hand a pen to out of two people after receiving instructions.
They also found he was able to produce sounds in response to instructions or to express emotions, such as a desire to go home.
Source: Mail Online
