Nerves of steel: Man takes rod through body, lives | Watch/

SURVIVOR'S TALE: It took doctors took eight hours to remove the rod from Dutta's body.

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Rohit Khilnani

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New Delhi: Supratim Dutta shouldn’t be alive, not after a 5-feet long and 2-inch wide iron rod pierced through his body.

Dutta, 23, was travelling in a cab when it hit a barricade. An iron rod pierced the car bonnet, the dashboard and then went through Dutta’s stomach. For the next 90 minutes, nailed to the car, he kept calling family and friends for help.

His father Sukumar Dutta says his son was brave. “My wife picked up the phone and he told her that he had met with an accident and feared for that he wouldn’t survive," says Sukumar.

Dutta was taken to trauma centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) where a team of eight doctors removed the rod after a three-hour long complicated surgery. AIIMS trauma centre chief Dr M C Misra, who led the surgery, says he hasn’t seen a case like this in his 36 years of practice.

“We had to cut the ribs and the diaphragm to get to the rod and lift it out from the body rather than pulling it out. Pulling it out would have caused more damage,” says Dr Misra.

Dutta's parents say his survival is a miracle for which they credit the doctors. Dutta will make a full recovery.