Disfigured by mobile phone blast in mouth, Yemeni man gets back normal features after rare surgery

A 26-year-old Yemeni man whose face was disfigured when a mobile phone exploded in his mouth regained normal facial features one and a half years after he underwent a reconstruction surgery at a city hospital here. The phone had exploded when the man, Saad, was holding it between his teeth while doing some work in November 2018, a senior doctor said.

Saad received first aid in Yemen but the incident severely disfigured his face and he was not able to eat and speak normally. He was keen to go for a reconstruction surgery to get back his normal face but due to the severity of the damage, a complex nature of surgery was required and doctors in Yemen refused to do it, Dr Ajaya Kashyap, Medical Director, KAS Medical Centre, said.

Saad came to India for treatment because of lack of such facilities in his own country, he added. "The blast was so strong that it burnt the inside of his mouth, tore up the muscles and the tongue leaving all the soft tissues damaged," Kashyap said.

"After much assessment, the team decided to use flaps of tissue from inside the mouth as well as fat tissues from his body and use it as a flap. Ensuring facial sensations was another challenge. We are happy that the procedure went well and patient regained his normal features," he said. During the reconstruction surgery on February 6, the oral cavity was reconstructed using flaps from inside of the cheeks. The lip muscles which had been split apart were repaired and flaps were used to close it, Dr Preeti Pandya, consultant at the hospital, said.

Saad said he was feeling relieved as he has got his normal facial features back.

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