Nghe An Friendship General Hospital fights to save patients' lives in critical moments.
On the night of August 25th – the moment Typhoon No. 5 struck – doctors at Nghe An Friendship General Hospital embarked on a six-hour "battle" to save the life of a critically ill patient.
At approximately 9:00 AM on August 25, 2025, while climbing and cutting tree branches to prepare for Typhoon No. 5, Mr. HST (57 years old, residing in Do Luong commune) unfortunately fell from a height of about 3 meters. His family took him to Do Luong General Hospital for emergency treatment. Subsequently, the patient was transferred directly to another hospital.Nghe An Friendship General Hospitalto provide treatment.
At 5 PM on the same day, patient HST was admitted to the Emergency Department.Nghe An Friendship General HospitalThe patient was admitted with severe epigastric pain. The patient had a history of small bowel rupture surgery 10 years prior.
Abdominal ultrasound and CT scan results revealed a rupture of the pancreatic-duodenal head. This is a rare and extremely dangerous injury; without immediate surgery, the patient could die from septic shock and severe blood loss.
At 8 PM that same day, the storm was hitting Nghe An. Outside, the wind howled and the rain poured down heavily. In the corridors of the Nghe An Friendship General Hospital, the lights flickered due to a power outage. But in the operating room, the lights shone brightly. The surgical team was urgently racing against time to save the life of patient HST.
Emergency pancreaticoduodenectomy for a patient with HST is a procedure typically indicated only in the most rare and complex surgical cases. During the surgery, the medical team discovered that in addition to the ruptured pancreaticoduodenoma, the patient also had tears in the muscular wall of the colon and small intestine. The patient had lost a significant amount of blood and required continuous blood and plasma transfusions to sustain life.
The surgery lasted six hours, from 8 PM on August 25th to 2 AM on August 26th. The surgical team, consisting of Specialist Doctor Le Anh Xuan, PhD Nguyen Huy Toan (General Surgery Department), and PhD Dinh Van Chien (Gastrointestinal Surgery Department), truly raced against death to save the patient's life. Reflecting on the lengthy surgery, PhD Nguyen Huy Toan shared: "We completely forgot about our worries about the approaching storm and focused all our attention on saving the patient's life."
In the early morning of August 26th, just as Typhoon No. 5 had passed, the surgery concluded successfully. The patient had overcome the critical stage and entered the recovery phase... Two weeks after Typhoon No. 5, patient HST had fully recovered and was discharged from the hospital to return home, much to the overwhelming joy of the family and the quiet pride of the medical staff.
