Tricky surgery gets city woman her voice back

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Surgeons at a city hospital have successfully repaired the sliced food pipe, wind pipe and voice box of a jeweller’s wife after her throat was slit by a chain-snatcher.

Fifty-two-year-old Ms Shanthi from Korukkupet was helping her husband at his imitation jewellery store when a “customer” had walked in, asking to see some ornaments.

Before she knew what was happening, the man grabbed her 15-sovereign gold chain and slashed her throat with a sickle before escaping. He is still at large.

“We rushed her to Apollo Tondiarpet hospital. She was bleeding profusely from her throat and I tried my best to hold the cut together,” recalls her husband Mr Ganapathy.

At the hospital, doctors found that the woman’s windpipe, food pipe and larynx were severed completely. They never expected her to talk or even eat normally again, and the nerve damage was substantial.

She was stabilized and shifted to the main Apollo hospital where ENT surgeon Dr Babu Manohar examined her.

“Shanthi had a deep cut running from her right ear into the neck, cutting through many big blood vessels and nerves. She was fighting for her life and the right side of her face had been paralyzed,” Dr Babu said.

A team of surgeons toiled for four hours to repair Ms Shanti’s airway and oesophagus. While it was touch and go for her damaged voice box, the doctors managed to save it and repaired the vocal folds, ensuring that she would have her voice back. Another microsurgery was performed to repair her frayed facial nerves, reversing the paralysis.