A 25-year-old had part of his skull “stored” in his abdomen after falling off his electric unicycle while making a delivery.
João Victor da Silva Cristofoli fell when he turned into raised pavement markers to avoid hitting a car that had stopped abruptly.
He injured his knee, punctured his lungs, broke his collarbone, and received a powerful blow to the head.
The latter gave him a traumatic brain injury and brain swelling.
Following the accident in March, surgeons had to cut out part of his skull and relocate it to his abdomen for three months.
João told Need To Know: “When the upper portion of my skull was in my abdomen, I felt uncomfortable.
“Because there was a bone there that shouldn’t have been, so it felt really weird.
“As for the dent in my head, it also affected my self-esteem because I was basically deformed.
“On top of that, there were a lot of things I couldn’t do any more since my brain no longer had the bone protecting it.
“So if something hit that spot, it would directly affect my brain.”
The operation João had is called a decompressive craniectomy.
His surgeon, Kelly Cristina Bordignon Gomes, told local media: “By removing the upper portion of the skull, the swollen brain has room to expand.
“This prevents damage to important brain structures.”
Had the bone not been removed, João risked developing a serious and potentially fatal brain injury.
The bone was relocated to his abdomen to protect it from infection and to help with reabsorption when reattached to the skull.
Dr Gomes told local media: “It isn’t kept inside the abdomen, in contact with the intestines or bladder.
“But rather in the abdominal wall, in a subcutaneous layer with a bit of fat where the bone is stored.
“Since the upper portion of the skull is large, it can’t be placed in an area with any skin tension, like the thigh.”
After his accident, João spent nine days in a coma at a hospital in Toledo, Brazil, near the borders with Paraguay and Argentina.
A month after his fall, he was discharged from hospital.
Three months later, he went back in to have the bone reattached.
It was placed back in its spot and secured to the rest of his skull with small plates and tiny screws.
Despite his ordeal, João is keen to get back on his EUC when the time is right.
He told Need To Know: “As for getting back to unicycling, it’s going to take at least another two months for my knee to fully heal.”
