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IPOH - Doctors at the Raja Permaisuri Bainun Hospital here are exploring all options in removing a bullet, lodged behind the throat of a 10-year-old boy.
The hospital's neurosurgeon, Dr Cheang Chee Keong, said since the surgery to remove the bullet was a risky one, the medical team would have to decide on the best way to minimise it.
Mohd Amar Mohd Azizi was hit by a stray bullet triggered off a policeman's service revolver on Monday.
It is understood that the sergeant was at his mother-in-law's house cleaning his pistol when it went off.
The surgery is scheduled later today or tomorrow.
Dr Cheang, who is attending to the boy, said Amar was stable and responding to treatment. He is able to move, talk and eat. The medical team also successfully stopped Amar's nose bleed.
"He is indeed one lucky boy. His condition is quite safe at the moment and we are in no hurry to operate on him.
"We will rope in specialists from hospitals throughout the country to see how we can best remove the bullet while minimising the risks on him."
State Health Committee chairman Nolee Ashilin Mohammed Radzi visited Amar at the hospital's paediatric intensive care unit yesterday.
This is the first time the hospital is performing such a surgery on a child.
He said if the bullet had penetrated one centimetre more from where it stopped, it would have penetrated Amar's spinal cord and caused the boy to be paralysed neck down or killed him.