RAS AL KHAIMAH // A two-year-old Emirati girl was paralysed after a cabinet shelf fell on her.
Mera Salem and a group of children were being watched by housemaids on Friday when the incident, that has left her at least temporarily quadriplegic, happened.
The children were playing around the cabinet, which would take two adults to lift, when Mera started climbing on it, causing a shelf to fall on top of her, her father said.
“The incident happened on Friday at 4.45pm when she was at her grandfather’s house.
“No one was at that time at the house except children and housemaids. Her aunt was there but, before the incident, she left the house,” Mr Salem said.
“While she was playing with the cabinet and wanted to climb up on the cabinet, the cabinet moved towards her and its top fell on her. At that time, the housemaids started calling her aunt to come back.
“My wife and I were going to Dubai, so Mera’s aunt called her grandfather, who came directly and found her not moving or breathing and took her to Saqr Hospital. On their way to the hospital, her aunt was giving her artificial respiration.”
Mera arrived at the hospital at 5.30pm and stayed there for two days before being moved to the Saudi-German Hospital in Al Barsha on Sunday at 8pm.
Dr Yousef Altair, director of Saqr Hospital in Ras Al Khaimah city, said the girl was in a bad way when she arrived.
“She was brought by her family with no pulse and no breath – she was almost dead,” he said.
“The accident and emergency department did cardiopulmonary resuscitation and then decided to send her to the intensive care unit. After that, she was doing well and her pulse came back and she opened her eyes. She started responding to her mother when she called her.”
Dr Altair said that hospital staff also X-rayed the girl and found no fractures or bleeding. Her brain was fine but she was still semi-conscious.
Mera’s family decided to transfer her to Dubai after noticing that her body temperature was increasing and her heartbeat was speeding up and then slowing down.
“We were not sure that she was fine, because they told us everything inside her body is fine, so why was her body temperature going up and her pulse was rising and falling?” the father said. “So we contacted the Armed Forces, who did everything and transferred her to this hospital.”
Dr Younis Khalid, consultant paediatrician and neonatologist at Saudi-German Hospital, has been monitoring Mera since her arrival and said she was quadriplegic, which means she has no use of her limbs, at least for now.
“She was struck on her neck, which led to a spinal cord injury, leading to tetraplegia (quadriplegia). She lost the sense of pain and she is unable to move,” he said. “She needs a long period of treatment but we are waiting for her spinal cord to recover and there is a hope that she will get better and be cured after the treatment.”
roueiti@thenational.ae
