Complex Surgery Removes Stray Bullet from 11-Year-Old’s Head at Rambam

ssuckerman1
2 days ago
2 min read

On New Year’s Eve, amid celebrations and fireworks, a family in a northern Galilean town was thrust into a nightmare when their son was struck in the head by a stray bullet.

An eleven-year-old boy was celebrating with his family at their home in Mughar. As part of their tradition, as they do every year, they went up onto the roof to watch the fireworks. When he came back downstairs, his cousin noticed a small bleeding wound on the boy's head, but he did not recall hurting himself. When the boy began vomiting, he was rushed to nearby Tzafon Medical Center (Poriya Hospital). A CT scan revealed a stray bullet that had entered the left side of his head and lodged behind his jaw.

The boy was transferred to the Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital at Rambam Health Care Campus and admitted to the Wagner-Green Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for close monitoring. Remarkably, although struck by a bullet, his condition was stable.

Professor Danny Eytan, director of the Unit, accompanied the family as they weighed the difficult decision to remove the bullet, and a few days later, multidisciplinary teams from the Departments of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Pediatric Surgery, and Pediatric Neurosurgery carried out a complex operation to extract the bullet.

“The bullet penetrated the skull and came to rest in the facial area,” says Dr. Saleh Nseir, a senior physician in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. “It was removed successfully, without neurological complications or significant injury. It was a miracle—this could have caused severe brain damage.”

Professor Eytan explains that although the boy's condition has improved, but he will still require additional care and rehabilitation.

The boy's father has called on authorities to unite and put an end to the dangerous and deadly tradition of random, celebratory gunfire.

Guided by their faith, the family is trying to come to terms with what happened, leaving what they could not control in God’s hands.