Girl, 6, Nearly Killed When Holy Water Font Falls On Her In Church And Rips Her Aorta

A six-year-old girl was nearly killed after a stone holy water font fell on her inside an Italian church.

The incident happened in Trinitapoli, in the northern part of Puglia’s Barletta-Andria-Trani province in southern Italy, on the afternoon of 25th August.

The girl was initially rushed to Barletta Hospital, where doctors immediately identified the severity of her abdominal trauma and the need for specialist vascular surgery.

She was then transferred to the Policlinico of Bari, arriving at around 11pm as a specialist paediatric emergency team was already standing by.

Danny Sivo, the hospital’s medical director, said: "The emergency response was activated even before the patient arrived in Bari."

He added: “When the girl reached our emergency department at around 11pm, the treatment pathway had already been defined and all the teams involved had been alerted and were ready to intervene.”

Medical tests revealed a traumatic rupture at the point where the aorta divides, with the tear also involving both common iliac arteries.

The Policlinico described the injury as “serious and extremely rare in paediatric patients”.

Vascular surgery director Domenico Angiletta chose a minimally invasive approach, allowing doctors to repair the damage without resorting to traditional open surgery.

The girl was taken into a specialist hybrid operating room, where surgeons carried out an endovascular procedure and inserted three stent grafts.

One was placed in the aorta while the other two were positioned in the iliac arteries, effectively reconstructing the damaged blood vessels.

The operation lasted around two hours and was completed at about 3.30am on 26th August, after which the girl was transferred to intensive care.

She later returned to the vascular surgery department and remained under close medical observation with her prognosis still guarded.

More recent reports said her post-operative recovery was progressing well, with the child awake and able to eat independently, although doctors had not yet lifted the guarded prognosis.

Antonio Sanguedolce, director general of the Policlinico of Bari, praised the cooperation between the specialist teams involved in the emergency.

He said: "The management of this emergency demonstrates concretely the essential importance of integration between professionals from different specialist units and locations."

He added that, faced with “an extremely complex paediatric trauma”, the specialists from the two hospitals had worked “as a single team”, ensuring continuity and speed throughout every stage of her treatment.

The circumstances surrounding the accident were being investigated, with reports saying it was not yet clear why the heavy holy water font had fallen.

(Marija Stojkoska/Newsflash)