A 21-year-old schoolgirl was saved from brain death in a life-saving one-hour operation. The young woman, due to a heart defect, had lost consciousness due to a brain clot.
When she arrived at Molinette, she was poised between life and death. Fortunately, the timely intervention first of 118 and then of the doctors of the Turin hospital managed to save her life. The life-saving operation, not at all simple, was carried out in about an hour and a half. The patient was a 21-year-old girl, a student who arrived from Turkey on 15 September for a period of study at the Polytechnic. The young woman, who has always enjoyed excellent health, said she started her day as usual and went to class like her every day.
Suddenly, on Friday morning, he first lost control of his arms and legs and then consciousness. Several hours later, she woke up in the Stroke unit of Molinette directed by Dr. Paolo Cerrato. In that period of time, however, several things happened: the 21-year-old’s roommate promptly called her 118 who immediately rescued her. In a short time, the health personnel identified the problem: a blood clot, formed in some vein of her body, had “migrated” to the heart and then to the brain, thus blocking a cerebral artery.
The student was operated on in just over an hour and the damage was stopped when it was not yet such as to cause permanent deficits. To take charge of her case, the doctor Mauro Bergui, director of interventional neuroradiology. According to what he said, the girl arrived at the hospital in a coma and was intubated. After the angiotac, the doctors continued by unoccluding the cerebral artery. A couple of hours later, the young woman recovered as if nothing had happened.
According to the doctors, everything was caused by a heart defect. The patient is now on anticoagulant medication and I will undergo another operation to close the cardiac septum.