Surgeon uses SMS text message instructions to save Congo boy’s life

We’ve heard of impromptu pilots safely landing an airplane with the help of SMS text message instructions, but this is the first we’ve heard of a surgeon using text message to perform a tricky operation. British vascular surgeon David Nott saved a 16 year-old Congo boy’s life by performing an amputation with instructions sent via SMS text message.

Nott volunteers one month out of every year to work with the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Rutshuru. Dr. Nott met the boy while working a 24-hour shift. The boy’s left arm was ripped off, leaving him with just six inches of the arm. There was little muscle or skin left around the wound, and gangrene had already set in.

The severe nature of the injury required that David Nott perform what’s known as a forequarter amputation, requiring removal of the collar bone and shoulder blade. Nott had never performed the operation, but managed to get in touch with a colleague who had performed the surgery in the UK.

Nott was given instructions via SMS text message from Professor Meirion Thomas, of London’s Royal Marsden Hospital. “I texted him and he texted back step by step instructions on how to do it,” Nott said.

The operation was a success. Even in a limited operating theater with just a pint of blood on hand, Nott managed to successfully amputate the boy’s forequarter. Without an intensive care unit at his disposal, Nott monitored the boy’s post-operation health. Nott said, “I don’t think there’s more than two or three surgeons in the UK who can do this. It was just luck that I was there and could do it,” adding that “It was touch and go whether he would make it so when I saw his face on the MSF website afterwards, it was a real delight.”

[Via: BBC]