Shopian Girl ‘Will Have To Live With Bullet In Abdomen’

Srinagar: After her three-hour-long surgery at the SMHS Hospital and with many tubes draining out blood and fluids from her body, Simran Jan tries to reassure her father with a smile. Hit by a bullet in abdomen at Nadigam, Shopian, where a gunfight raged Tuesday morning, this class 10 student was rushed to hospital in a critical condition.

Although doctors said her condition was stable, but being monitored after surgery, her father Mansoor Ahmed’s worries did not seem over. Doctors told him the bullet could not be removed from her abdomen as foraging for it could damage her organs further.

“The doctors told me that she will have to live with bullet in her belly,” anguished Ahmed lamented. He was inquiring around whether doctors would write it down for him that the bullet would stay in her abdomen.

“What if she plans to travel outside? What will happen at the airport?” he asked a doctor. “It is like a stamp on my innocent daughter,” he feared for some unseen dangers.

A senior doctor said they analysed risks and benefits of taking out the bullet from body of the 15-year old patient. “Removing it is riskier so we left it there,” the doctor said. “In future the patient can be reviewed to take a fresh call.”

The doctor said her gall bladder had suffered severe damage and was removed. The bullet had caused a hole in the liver which was managed. “Luckily the liver didn’t suffer much damage,” the doctor said.

Simran, her family said, was injured when the encounter ended, along with two more girls. Among them was Meena, also brought to Srinagar for treatment. Injured by a bullet in left leg, Meena is undergoing treatment at Bone and Joint Hospital. Doctors said her condition was stable.

However, a youth, Parvaiz Ahmed from Shopian, also injured in leg with a bullet has suffered “extensive damage to vessels and nerves” a doctor at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), where he was admitted, said.

Medical superintendent SKIMS Dr Farooq A Jan said the patient had both bones of the left leg fractured and has “no blood flow” in the injured limb. He was undergoing a surgery at the time this report was filed. Dr Jan said cardio-vascular thoracic surgeons of the institute were trying to repair the torn vessels to restore blood supply to the limb.

In addition, four people with pellet injuries were also admitted to SMHS Hospital for treatment. Among them was a 14-year-old boy, with his left eye injured with pellets. Medical superintendent SMHS Hospital DrSaleemTak said three of the five people admitted at the hospital had pellet injuries to eyes. “The extent of damage to their vision is being evaluated,” he said.