A child lives for three years with a bicycle brake embedded in his back

After a fall from his bicycle, a 10-year-old boy unknowingly lived with a metal brake lever lodged near his spine.

A truly astonishing medical discovery has been made in Italy. A 13-year-old boy learned that he had been living for three years with a bicycle brake lever lodged in his back, very close to his spine. The metal object had entered his body during an accident when he was only 10 years old.

At the time, the boy had fallen off his bicycle. The force of the impact had caused the brake lever to detach and disappear. No one had imagined then that it had penetrated his back through a small wound.

Even more surprisingly, the child then resumed a perfectly normal life, notably practicing sports, without experiencing any particular discomfort for several years.

Pains that reveal the incredible

The first symptoms appeared three years after the accident. The teenager began to experience pain in his right leg, which gradually spread to both lower limbs.

Initial neurological examinations revealed no abnormalities. But an X-ray of the spine finally put the doctors on the right track: a five-centimeter metallic object, elongated and curved, was located to the left of his lumbar vertebrae.

A scan confirmed that it was the brake lever that had disappeared during the fall. Over the years, a layer of connective tissue had formed around the object, isolating it from surrounding tissues.

A high-risk operation

Removing the piece of metal was proving particularly tricky. The lever was located precisely where a nerve root emerges from the spinal column. "The biggest challenge was the position of the lever," explains Leonardo Oggiano, the surgeon in charge of the operation.

The teenager was transferred to the Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital in Rome, where a specialized team successfully removed the object completely without damaging the nerve. The procedure was ultimately successful. The very next day, the young patient was able to get up again. He left the hospital a few days later and made a full recovery.

For Pier Francesco Costici, head of the medical department, this case is exceptional. The most surprising aspect remains the absence of symptoms for three years, despite the presence of such a large foreign body near a nerve structure.