A doctor in rural Australia used a household drill to bore a hole into the skull of a boy with a severe head injury, saving his life.
Nicholas Rossi, 13, fell off his bike Friday in Maryborough, Victoria, hitting his head, his family said. By the time Rossi got to the hospital, he was slipping in and out of consciousness.
The doctor on duty, Rob Carson, quickly recognized the boy was experiencing potentially fatal bleeding on the brain and knew he had only minutes to drill a hole through the boy’s skull to relieve the pressure.
But the small hospital was not equipped with neurological drills — so Carson grabbed a household drill from the maintenance room.
He called a Melbourne neurosurgeon for help, and the specialist talked Carson through the procedure.
Rossi was airlifted to a larger hospital in Melbourne and released Tuesday — his 13th birthday.
