Boy, 10, left paralyzed and unable to speak after pulling out rotten tooth with bare hands

A 10-year-old boy who pulled out a decayed tooth with his bare hands suffered acute cerebral hemorrhage and was left with limb paralysis and aphasia.

According to media reports cited by Baidu on Tuesday, the boy — identified only as A — was rushed to Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Hubei Province, China, on Monday after suffering a sudden brain hemorrhage. He arrived in critical condition, unable to move his limbs or speak.

The attending neurosurgeon said CT scans showed an excessive amount of bleeding in the brain. "Paralysis had already set in, and he was unable to speak," the doctor said.

An MRA examination found multiple aneurysms in the boy's brain at high risk of rupturing.

Further tests revealed a problem with his heart. An echocardiogram showed infectious inflammation of the heart valves, and doctors determined that the rupture of some of those inflamed areas had triggered the cerebral hemorrhage.

Emergency surgery to drain the pooled blood stabilized his condition.

Doctors traced the cause of the acute brain bleed to an incident several months earlier, when the boy had pulled out a cavity-ridden tooth with his bare hands.

The oral infection that developed during the extraction is believed to have entered the bloodstream, spread to the heart and caused the valve inflammation, which then affected the cerebral blood vessels and led to the hemorrhage.

Doctors urged the boy's parents never to forcibly pull out a child's decayed tooth at home. They also advised that if a child develops a persistent low-grade fever of unknown origin or shows signs of unusual fatigue, parents should seek medical attention promptly to identify the underlying cause.