Woman undergoes complicated surgery after snake bite

Lucknow| Doctors at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) in Lucknow have successfully treated a woman from Bihar who was bitten by a cobra and the infection spread to her forearm.

According to a SGPGIMS release, the woman, 25, was bitten by a cobra in her village last month.

The woman woke up with intense pain, redness, swelling, bruising, bleeding. She began vomiting and started frothing at the mouth.

She was taken to the local hospital where she was given iv fluids after which she regained consciousness. She was then referred to the district hospital where anti-snake venom was given.

The patient recovered from the effects of the snake bite gradually over a period of few days but the bite wound in the hand started becoming deeper and developed infection.

She had a large wound over the right-hand dorsum extending up to the index finger with lot of slough along with deformity of the finger. She had exposure of the extensor tendons along with scarring and secondary deformity.

The patient’s wound was dressed and she was put on active physiotherapy.

She was then operated where the dead tendons and skin was removed and was replaced by healthy tendons and skin using an advanced plastic surgery composite tissue transfer procedure to reconstruct both the tendons and skin at the same time. The operation lasted four hours. The patient is now recovering well from surgery.