28/08/2026
A Shattered Face, A Stopped Heart, A Second Chance: One Patient’s story of an Improbable Recovery at AIIMS Kalyani
There are cases that test a hospital's grit, and then there are cases that test a hospital's soul. The story of 28-year-old Rajesh Mondal (name changed), wheeled into the trauma bay of AIIMS Kalyani after a devastating two-wheeler crash, is unmistakably the latter- a story that moved from a shattered face to a stopped heart to, three weeks later, a man walking out of the hospital on his own two feet, smiling.
A Face Shattered, A Fight Beginning
Mr Rajesh, was riding without a helmet when his bike went down. He was rushed in with injuries to nearly every bone in his face. Both cheekbones, the bones around both eyes, and the delicate structure around his nose were all broken, some in several places. His nasal bridge was crushed, and the bones around his left eye had shifted so badly that his eyes no longer sat evenly.
The trauma and emergency surgery team at AIIMS Kalyani - Dr Pranay Kabiraj, Dr Debmoy Ghatak, Dr Dipayan and Dr Abantika - took him into the operating theatre for a marathon reconstructive surgery, with Dr Unnati Asthana managing his anaesthesia throughout. Working through an incision hidden across the scalp, the surgeons carefully folded the skin of the face forward to reach the damage underneath, then rebuilt his facial skeleton piece by piece - using tiny plates, wires, and screws to hold shattered fragments back in their rightful place.
The most remarkable moment of the surgery was almost sculptural in its ingenuity. Rajesh's nose had been crushed so badly that it could not simply be fixed - it had to be rebuilt from scratch. The surgeons took a small piece of bone from his own rib and carved it into a brand-new nasal bridge, fixing it in place with a precision plate. A part of his chest became, quite literally, his new nose.
Then, Disaster - On the Fourth Day
Just as Mr Rajesh appeared to be turning the corner, his body delivered a second, far more terrifying blow. Four days after his facial surgery, while straining, he suddenly grew breathless, grew dizzy, and then began to have a seizure. Rushed back to the emergency bay, doctors found his heart had stopped beating properly and he had no pulse.
What followed was 42 minutes that would decide everything. An emergency alert was sounded, and the trauma surgery team - Dr Debmoy, Dr Manoj and Dr Bhabru - along with the nursing staff, took charge of reviving him, following continuous, high-quality chest compressions and standard emergency life-support measures without a single pause for thirty-five straight minutes.
The Long Climb Back
The fight was far from over. Mr. Rajesh was moved to the critical care unit, where the combined trauma surgery and critical care team, working closely with Dr Saurav Barman, began the delicate work of protecting a brain and body that had just endured a cardiac arrest. Blood tests showed his heart and liver had both been under serious strain, and doctors watched him around the clock for any sign of damage to his brain, carefully managing his breathing support to protect his lungs and brain alike.
Two days after the arrest, he developed brief, worrying muscle twitches, which settled on their own within a day. A small tube was placed in his windpipe (a tracheostomy) to help ease him gently off the breathing machine rather than risk a difficult, prolonged process later. Step by step, the team weaned him off breathing support, until he was finally breathing entirely on his own.
By the 8th day in intensive care, Mr. Rajesh was out of bed. His mind was clear and he knew exactly where he was and what had happened to him - a small miracle in itself, given how long his heart had stopped. He was moved back to the trauma ward, his facial stitches came out, the windpipe tube was removed, and doctors watched him for 48 more careful hours before they were satisfied.
Walking Out
On August 20, more than three weeks after he was carried in unconscious and disfigured, he walked out of AIIMS Kalyani. His voice was clear. His vision was intact. His face - rebuilt with plates, wire, and a piece of his own rib - was healing. He left with instructions to take it slow - he left on his own feet, talking, smiling, alive.
It is the kind of outcome that the treating team describes, without hesitation, as extraordinary - a case built on split-second emergency response, painstaking reconstructive surgery, relentless critical care, and, as the team themselves are quick to add, no small measure of grace. As one member of the team put it: for all the science and skill in that operating theatre and ICU, everyone involved feels a deep sense of gratitude that his hand was held through it - by his medical team, and by something greater than any of them.
The team credits the seamless coordination across departments - trauma surgery, anaesthesia, critical care, and nursing - as central to the outcome, an effort made possible under the guidance of Medical Superintendent Prof. Dr Mahuya Chattopadhyay and Director Prof. Dr Arvind Sinha.
For a young man who, by every clinical measure, should not have survived the fourth day after his surgery - let alone walked out of the hospital weeks later - Rajesh Mondal's recovery stands as a quiet, remarkable testament to what a trauma team can do when every second counts.
- Reported from AIIMS Kalyani, Trauma & Emergency Surgery
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India
