Twelve-year-old Nicholas Rossi was lucky to have seen his 13th birthday on Tuesday, after a bicycle accident in a country town left him with bleeding on the brain.

Nicholas’ mother Karen, a nurse, took him to the district hospital when he complained of a headache. There he experienced seizures and lapsed in and out of consciousness. Doctor Rob Carson recognized the symptoms of a brain hemorrhage, realized he had minutes to act and quickly called Melbourne neurosurgeon David Wallace for procedural advice.

With no neurological drills in the district hospital, Dr. Carson had to improvise. Nicholas was anesthetized while Dr. Carson retrieved an electric drill from the maintenance room. He drilled a hole in Nicholas’ skull just below a bruise mark above his ear and a blood clot soon emerged. He then widened the hole to approximately 1cm in diameter with forceps to allow for the insertion of a drainage tube.

An hour after the makeshift surgery that Nicholas’ father Michael likened to a “military operation,” Nicholas was airlifted to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, where he remained under observation until was released yesterday (Tuesday), which also happened to be his 13th birthday.

[The Age]

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