Phone bursts, rips open stomach

A man’s mobile phone burst, ripping his stomach on March 11. Salauddin Khan (30) survived, however, and was rushed from Heer Matla in Haryana’s Mewat district to Artemis Health Institute in Gurgaon.

A man’s mobile phone burst, ripping his stomach on March 11. Salauddin Khan (30) survived, however, and was rushed from Heer Matla in Haryana’s Mewat district to Artemis Health Institute in Gurgaon.

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It took doctors four hours to put his stomach together and they said Khan would require at least one more surgery. At the institute, a surgeon described Khan’s condition as “critical but stable” on Friday.

“My younger brother was waiting for one of our drivers when his Nokia 1210 phone exploded. People ran in panic seeing his intestines pop out,” recalled Sahun Khan, a transporter in Heer Matla.

Nokia India, however, denied knowledge of the incident. “I am not aware of any such incident. More importantly, we do not have a model called 1210. Most of these incidents happen because of counterfeit batteries and chargers,” said Poonam Kaul, Corporate Communications Director with Nokia India.

When Khan was brought to Artemis, “one-fourth of his abdominal wall had ruptured. Half his liver and the middle of his colon were also crushed,” said Dr Sandeep Malhotra, consultant surgeon at Artemis Health Institute.

In a four-hour-long operation, a senior surgeon and 10 assistants put back Khan’s stomach.

“He would require at least one more operation to reconstruct his abdominal wall and connect his intestines to the stomach. We also need to put a feeding tube in his intestines till he can take food orally,” said his surgeon.

Dr Malhotra said Khan would need to stay at least two weeks in the hospital and it would be months before he recovered completely.

The police have registered a medico-legal case, as the exact cause of the explosion is not known.