NEEDLE IN HEART

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19131, 28 September 1936, Page 5

NEEDLE IN HEART

BOY ALIVE AND WELL SIMPLE OPERATION MELBOURNE, Sept. 18. A darning needle penetrated one and a half inches into the heart of a boy aged two last night, and the boy is alive and well. The needle was removed by a simple operation by doctors at the Children's Hospital. The child, Billy Curwood, of Donald street, Footscray, fell. His mother hugged him to her to comfort him. Billy showed signs of great pain, and his mother thought that a rib had been broken. She took him to a doetor, who ordered that he be taken to hospital. Doctors there found a lump on his chest which pulsated in sympathy with his breathing. An X-ray examination revealed the darning needle. The child was given an anaesthetic, and an incision was made in the lump. The eve of the needle was thus cxposcd,"and with forceps the needle was withdrawn. The operation took less than a minute, and the boy soon recovered. ■■, It is believed that when the child s mother picked him up she had a needle in her apron, which penetrated his Doctors at the Children's Hospital said to-day that it had been known for some time that the popular belief that if the heart were penetrated it was fatal was a fallacy. Billy's case, however, was the first proof of this in Melbourne.