Bullet in Heart for Ten Years, item 2

• October 25, 2018 15:08:05 Sara Fresi

  MAN SURVIVES

  A BULLET IN

  HIS HEART

  
  

       EXTRACTED AFTER

             TEN YEARS

  SENT BACK TO FIGHT

  
  

  MICHAEL REILLY, late of

  the Connaught Rangers, who

  had a German bullet in his

  heart for ten years, will leave

  Queen Mary's Hospital,

  Roehampton, is an extraordinary

  one. He was shot at

  Nuevo Chapelle in the spring of

  1915, the bullet piercing both

  lungs and lodging in the heart.

  He lay unconscious for a

  week, but the bullet could not

  be located, and he was eventually

  sent back to the firingline.

  He was in the battle of the 

  Somme in 1916, and was

  buried in a shell-hole, and

  afterwards seriously wounded

  by shrapnel in the thigh.

  His wounds necessitated two

  operations, and he was X-rayed,

  but still no one discovered

  that there was a bullet

  in the muscle of the heart.

  
  

                 LOCATED

  "Paddy" transferred to

  the Labour Corps, and soon

  after the armistice was sent to

  his home in Longford, Ireland,

  on pension. Dr. Mary J.

  Farrell, of Londford, sent hime

  to the Richmond Hospital, Dublin,

  where he was again X-rayed,

  and eventually six years

  after he had been shot, the 

  bullet was located.

  Later on he was transferred

  to Roehampton, where Major

  J. E. H. Roberts, a Harley

  Street surgeon, performed one

  of the most remarkable operations

  in the history of surgery

  by successfully removing from

  the pericardium the bullet

  which had lain there for ten

  years.

  That was in June last, and

  by the following month Reilly

  was sufficiently recovered to be

  able to attend a garden party at

  Buckingham Palace, where the 

  Duke of Connaught congratutaled

  him on his series of

  extraordinary escapes from

  death, and pais tribute to the

  great skill of Major Roberts.

  Reilly, who is declared to be

  the merriest patient in Queen

  Mary's Hospital, is now able to

  play football, and has been

  pronunced fit to retur home.

  ___________________________________

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