A resident of India tried to bury alive a "two-headed" child suffering from a rare disease, but the gravedigger heard the baby's cry and saved his life. The Daily Mail reports. The child was born with the illusion of a second head on the back of the head due to a bone defect. The father saw the sick baby and decided to get rid of him. During the burial, a cemetery worker heard a child crying in the grave, opened the coffin and found a living baby inside.
The gravedigger reported the incident to the police. The child was taken to the hospital, where he received emergency medical care. Doctors diagnosed the newborn with encephalocele (a congenital malformation of the skull and brain, in which part of the medulla is outside the cranium). Attending surgeon Abdul Rashid Bhat performed the surgery and removed a growth on the back of the head, which was three times the size of the baby's head. “It all lasted three hours. The operation was successful: he was restored to the natural shape of his head, after which the child's health began to return to normal,”says Rashid Bhat.
According to local media reports, the father was arrested but later released on bail. The child was adopted by his brother. In 2018, a UK-born boy from the UK celebrated his 10th birthday, though doctors predicted he would die within an hour of being born. His mother calls him "happy and sociable." The boy enjoys going to school, riding horses and watching cartoons.