By Mandeep Singh
Published: 19th September 2006
A MAN who survived after apparently slitting his own throat may actually have been attacked. It would be almost impossible for someone to inflict such a serious injury on themselves, doctors at Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) said yesterday.
Indian Rukmaya Tombaya Moolya’s throat was cut so deep the trachea and gullet were severed.
The 35-year-old bachelor was found lying in a pool of blood with his throat cut and a knife in his hand, in a lavatory in a building in Tubli, at about 9.30am on Saturday.
“Though we have the police version that it was a suicide attempt and we are not able to question that, the reality is that it is very unlikely that any man could inflict himself with such a wound,” said consultant vascular surgeon Dr Sadiq Abdullah.
By Mandeep Singh
Published: 19th September 2006
A MAN who survived after apparently slitting his own throat may actually have been attacked. It would be almost impossible for someone to inflict such a serious injury on themselves, doctors at Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) said yesterday.
Indian Rukmaya Tombaya Moolya’s throat was cut so deep the trachea and gullet were severed.
The 35-year-old bachelor was found lying in a pool of blood with his throat cut and a knife in his hand, in a lavatory in a building in Tubli, at about 9.30am on Saturday.
“Though we have the police version that it was a suicide attempt and we are not able to question that, the reality is that it is very unlikely that any man could inflict himself with such a wound,” said consultant vascular surgeon Dr Sadiq Abdullah.
He led the team which performed the surgery on Mr Moolya, saving his life.
“His throat was slashed ‘to the bone,’ so to speak,” Dr Abdullah told the GDN. “The trachea was slit clean and then, behind the trachea, the two-to-three centimetre diameter gullet was also clean cut.”
The “knife” was apparently a blade attached to a handle that is normally used by people who fix carpets in people’s homes.
“Though it is extremely sharp, it can require some amount of force to cut the way it did,” said Dr Abdullah
SMC accident and emergency department chief resident Dr P V Cheriyan was the first to attend to Mr Moolya.
He said that at first glance it appeared someone had slit Mr Moolya’s throat. “We were only later told it was an apparent suicide attempt,” said Dr Cheriyan.
He said Mr Moolya would have needed a tremendous amount of strength to injure himself in this way.
Mr Moolya’s uncle, Krishna Salian, said earlier that there was no reason for him to try to kill himself.
“He is fairly well off, earns BD90 every month, sent little money home, is unmarried, has a very caring sponsor and has a brother working in Bahrain as well,” he said.
Mr Salian, a tailor in a Tubli shop, said his nephew, who worked in a stationery shop nearby in the block where he was found, was normally a very jovial person and was forever joking with his friends.
“Me, my other nephew, as well as his friends, are unable to fathom why he should attempt to kill himself,” said Mr Salian.
He said police had told him there was a suicide note at the scene and some of what it said, but he had not personally seen it.
The note reportedly said Mr Moolya was “fed up with life”.
“If he was fed up, he should have given us some hint of it. Nothing like that happened. He never said anything. He never complained,” said Mr Salian.
Dr Abdullah yesterday praised paramedics and accident and emergency doctors, who got Mr Moolya alive to the operating table.
“It is a miracle that happened and credit for that has to go to first the paramedics and then the emergency doctors, who took the right decisions, at the right time,” he said.
“Mr Moolya has been extremely lucky. He is fortunate he has lived to see another day.”
Dr Abdullah said one of the jugular veins in the neck, that drains drain blood from the head, brain, face and neck and conveys it toward the heart, had been damaged, as also was the carotid artery, which carries the blood to the brain.
“It is critical that these stay intact and it is again to the credit of the paramedics who ensured they had blocked these sufficiently well to prevent the patient bleeding to death,” he said.
Dr Abdullah said though Mr Moolya may never fully regain his normal voice, he should recover enough in the next few weeks to be able to talk.
“He is otherwise physically all right,” he said.
Mr Salian said yesterday Mr Moolya’s family in Mangalore, Karnataka, had still not been informed of the incident.
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