Eight-month-old Dhyaansh, the youngest victim of the June 12 Air India plane crash, found a true saviour in his mother. Not only did she rescue him from the on-ground crash fire, but she also donated her skin for grafts to treat his deep burn wounds.
The child, who sustained 36 per cent burns, is now on the road to recovery, as the skin donated by his mother – who also suffered 25 per cent burns – for grafts has significantly aided the healing of his wounds, according to doctors. Skin grafts involve transplanting healthy skin to cover wounds, burns, or areas damaged by surgery or disease, promoting tissue growth to help a person heal.
Both the infant and his mother have been discharged from a private hospital in Ahmedabad after five weeks of intensive treatment and plastic surgery to restore the skin damaged by the fire, doctors confirmed on Monday.
“The child`s own skin along with his mother`s skin grafts were used to treat his third-degree burn wounds,” said Dr. Rutvij Parikh, a consultant plastic surgeon at KD Hospital.
When Air India flight 171 crashed into the BJ Medical College`s hostel-cum-residential complex on June 12, Manisha Kachhadiya and her son Dhyaansh were in one of the affected buildings. Dhyaansh`s father, Kapil Kachhadiya, is pursuing his super-speciality MCh degree course in urology at the BJ Medical College, which is attached to the Civil Hospital. At the time of the crash, he was at the hospital, while his wife and son were in their allocated quarter.
Both Manisha and Dhyaansh suffered burn injuries in the horrific tragedy, which claimed 260 lives, including 241 persons on board the aircraft and others on the ground. The magnitude of the crash and subsequent fire was such that despite being inside a flat, the intense heat caused burn injuries to Manisha, a homeopath, and Dhyaansh, Kapil Kachhadiya explained. He recounted that when the crash occurred, Manisha, despite her own injuries, picked up their son and managed to escape the building.
After receiving primary treatment at the Civil Hospital, both were immediately transferred to KD Hospital on the same day due to the severity of their burn injuries, said Dr. Parth Desai, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the private medical facility.
According to Dr. Parikh, Manisha had sustained 25 per cent burns on her arms, face, and legs, while the infant suffered 36 per cent burns on his face and other body parts. “Since some wounds were deep due to third-degree burns suffered by both the mother and son, we needed to perform the skin grafting procedure to cover those wounds,” he stated. “In this procedure, we take a thin layer of skin and graft it on the wound to cover it. The place from where the skin is taken gets healed with time, and new skin eventually covers it,” Dr. Parikh added.
Firstly, Manisha`s own skin was grafted to heal her wounds, said Dr. Parikh, who performed the surgeries at KD Hospital. Subsequently, Dr. Parikh took skin from both Manisha and Dhyaansh to cover the infant`s burn injuries. “To cover Dhyaansh`s wounds, we needed more skin because infants do not have much skin on their body. Thus, we used both Manisha`s and his own skin to cover his wounds. Usually, a mother`s skin is preferred in such cases,” he explained. “Both eventually recovered and were discharged a week back after five weeks of intensive treatment,” Dr. Parikh concluded.
Apart from the mother-son duo, four other patients, all medical students from BJ Medical College, were also treated at KD Hospital, Dr. Desai confirmed. “A total of six patients, including the mother-son duo, were admitted to our hospital after getting injured in the plane crash. Among the four medical students, one had a fracture while another had a facial injury. But, the most complicated case was of this mother-son duo,” he added.
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