Health · Healthcare & Policy · 9 hrs ago
Bicycle brake lever removed from Italian boy’s back after three years
A 13-year-old boy in Italy had a bicycle brake lever in his back for three years without knowing it.
It entered through a small wound when he fell from his bike at age 10, and the lever was lost in the accident.
He carried on with normal activities, including sport, until he developed pain in his right leg and then discomfort in both legs.
A spinal X-ray revealed the 5.5-centimeter metal piece near his lower spine.
The lever was close to a nerve root, making removal risky, so specialists at Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Palidoro operated carefully.
The team removed the lever in a three-hour operation while monitoring the nerve.
He was able to get up the next morning, left hospital a few days later and recovered fully.
Doctors removed a bicycle brake lever that had been lodged in a 13-year-old boy’s back for three years.
The metal piece entered through a small wound when he fell from his bicycle at age 10.
Doctors discovered it after he developed pain in his right leg and later discomfort in both legs.
The 5.5-centimetre lever was beside a nerve root near the lumbar spine.
A team at Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Palidoro removed it in an operation lasting about three hours.
- Who
- A 13-year-old boy in Italy, treated by a team led by surgeon Leonardo Oggiano.
- What
- Doctors removed a bicycle brake lever that had been lodged in the boy’s back for three years.
- When
- The lever was removed in 2026, three years after the boy’s bicycle fall at age 10.
- Where
- Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Palidoro, near Rome.
- Why
- The boy developed pain in his right leg and later discomfort in both legs, prompting examinations that revealed the lever.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
The boy fell from his bicycle, and the brake lever entered his back through a small wound.
Pain in his right leg, followed by discomfort in both legs, led to medical examinations.
A spinal X-ray revealed the metal object, and further imaging showed its position near a nerve root.
Doctors at Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital removed the lever in an operation lasting about three hours.
- Boy’s age
- 13
- Time lodged in back
- 3 years
- Brake lever length
- 5.5 centimetres
- Hospital
- Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital, Palidoro
- Operation duration
- About 3 hours
4 sources
What people are saying
The greatest difficulty was the position of the lever, exactly where the nerve root exits the spine
The main difficulty was the position of the lever, which had moved into the foraminal space, exactly where the nerve root exits the spine. We had to progressively free the nerve from the foreign body, working with extreme precision to preserve its function.