Doctors at ISUL general hospital successfully saved the hand of a 17-year-old boy injured in an attack by a group of other boys.
The medical team used an innovative material for bone regeneration known as “bio-glass,” a method that is gradually becoming standard practice.
“The wrist is perfect, the supination of the forearm isn’t ideal, but given the type of injury, nothing better could be expected,” explained the doctors.
The attack, which involved six boys against one, reportedly stemmed from a dispute over a girl and resulted in a broken arm. Deyan Delchev, 17, underwent initial surgery at a hospital in Haskovo.
“They made large incisions and inserted big metal pieces. Those pieces caused an infection—they weren’t properly sterilised. Then they put my arm in a cast, which smelled awful. But they told me everything was fine,” said Deyan.
Postoperatively, Deyan developed osteomyelitis, a severe bacterial infection that could have been life-threatening. He was advised to continue treatment in Sofia.
“Many hospitals didn’t want to take me because of the infection,” he added.
At ISUL, doctors managed to control the inflammation, a process that took several months. The next stage involved replacing the destroyed bone with bio-glass—a material that lowers the risk of recurring infection.
“Imagine a bone with a chunk missing. Essentially, we fill that gap with this glass. It comes in granules and is placed locally. Until recently, the standard procedure was autologous bone transplantation—taking bone from another part of the patient’s body and implanting it into the defect,” explained Dr Radoil Simeonov from the Clinic of Orthopaedics and Traumatology at ISUL.
At a follow-up appointment, Deyan reported no pain and expressed gratitude to the doctors for their care.
“I’m perfect now, just like any healthy person,” he said.
As life would have it, Deyan and the girl at the centre of the incident are no longer together.
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