Chinese surgeons save patient who was nearly beheaded by robotic arm

Medical team in Shanghai had to reattach the man’s vertebrae while overcoming two blocked arteries

Chinese doctors have saved a patient whose head was nearly severed by a robotic arm.

Doctors said the patient’s cervical vertebrae had been severed and crucial neurovascular structures had been damaged, but the spinal cord remained intact despite sustaining serious contusions.

“We have looked through much literature at home and abroad, but have never come across a case of such severe cervical vertebra separation, let alone one that survived after treatment,” Chen Huajiang, director of the cervical spine surgery department at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, an affiliate of the Naval Medical University, said.

The patient was hit by a robotic arm on May 31, in an accident that caused instant paralysis and a heart attack, according to the Chinese medical information site Yixue Jie.