http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=nw20070418214539877C139497
Bullet stuck in man's heart for 39 years
April 19 2007 at 01:04AM
By Vu Tien Hong
Hanoi - Doctors have removed a bullet from the heart of a Vietnamese
soldier nearly four decades after he was shot by US troops during the
Vietnam war, doctors said on Monday.
Le Dinh Hung, 60, underwent surgery at a Hanoi hospital on Friday and is
recovering quickly, said Dr Nguyen Sinh Hien, who spent three hours
operating on Hung.
"It is the strangest case that I have ever seen," Hien said. "Normally a
person with a bullet in his heart would die immediately if they didn't
have surgery right away."
Hung said he feels much better now, and the pain in his chest had eased.
"I was very lucky to survive," he said from his hospital bed. "People
believe in their fate and I do too."
Hung was shot during a 1968 battle in Quang Tri province, near the
former Demilitarised Zone that separated North and South Vietnam. He had
been living with chronic pain ever since.
"The operation was even more successful than we had expected," said
Hung's daughter, Le Thi Mai, 33, who visited her father at the hospital
on Sunday. "When I spoke to him, he was very happy."
One year after Hung was shot, doctors tried unsuccessfully to remove the
bullet, which was 2.5cm long.
Hien said the bullet went through Hung's stomach, damaged his cardiac
valve and came to rest at the back of his heart.
Surgeons replaced Hung's damaged valve with an artificial one.
Doctors said Hung would rest in the Hanoi Heart Hospital for several
more days before returning to his home in neighbouring Ha Tay province.
"It's a miracle that he survived with a bullet in his heart," said Hoang
Thi Ngoc Huong, the hospital's deputy director. "We have had thousands
of heart surgeries, but this is the first time we experienced something
like this."
Hung, who is retired, worked as an administrator at a Hanoi medical
school after the war. He has three grown children and lives with his
56-year-old wife.
He fought with the communist North, which defeated the army of the
former South Vietnam in 1975. The war claimed the lives of three million
people, including 58 000 US troops. - Sapa-AP
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
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