SINGAPORE: For anyone who’s experienced the discomfort that sometimes comes with wearing a hair claw, the following scenario might be nightmare fuel.
A 61-year-old woman sustained serious injury after being hit by a car while crossing the road in Chengdu, China.
The danger, however, wasn’t the impact of the crash, but her claw hair clip which pierced part of her scalp.
The Chengdu resident, known by her surname Du, landed on her head during the accident on Feb 3.
The impact of the fall caused her gold metal claw clip to “penetrate her scalp”, according to Chinese online news site 163.com.
Du was conscious when she was admitted to hospital, Chinese news reports said, noting that half the hair claw still remained painfully lodged in her head.
Through CT scan images, doctors at the General Medical 363 Hospital located remaining fragments of the clip, mere millimetres away from the brain stem and important nerves and blood vessels in Du’s brain.
Three of the clip’s teeth had fully sunken into Du’s head, emergency physician Dr Tian Fengming told reporters on Feb 8.
Fortunately they did not reach her skull, making them easier to remove, he said.
But any slight mistake could still cause heavy bleeding and lead to “serious irreversible nerve damage”, he added, so removal efforts had to be precise.
“No mistakes were allowed,” he said.
After administering an anaesthetic shot, Dr Tian and his team managed to fully remove the hair claw within 10 minutes.
“Fortunately, it was successfully removed and the patient’s condition has stabilised,” Dr Tian told reporters.
