Bullet removed from heart 39 years after war

DOCTORS have removed a bullet from the heart of a Vietnamese soldier nearly four decades after he was shot by US troops during the Vietnam War, doctors said yesterday.

Le Dinh Hung, 60, underwent surgery at a Hanoi hospital on Friday and is recovering quickly, said Dr Nguyen Sinh Hien, who spent three hours operating on Hung.

“It is the strangest case that I have ever seen,” Dr Hien said. “Normally a person with a bullet in his heart would die immediately if they didn’t have surgery right away”

Mr Hung said he feels much better now.

“I was very lucky to survive,” he said from his hospital bed. “People believe in their fate and I do too.”

Mr Hung was shot during a 1968 battle in Quang Tri province, near the former demilitarised zone that separated north and south Vietnam. He had been living with chronic pain ever since.

Dr Hien said the bullet went through Mr Hung’s stomach, damaged his cardiac valve and came to rest at the back of his heart.

Surgeons replaced Mr Hung’s damaged valve with an artificial one.

Doctors said he would rest in the Hanoi Heart Hospital for several more days before returning to his home in neighboring Ha Tay province.

“It’s a miracle that he survived,” said the hospital’s deputy director.