Doctors at a private hospital in Kochi have removed parts of a bullet from an Omani teenagers brain and chin in an eight-hour surgery.

The 17-year old accidentally fired his gun at himself while he was trying to kill a cat which attacked birds at his chicken farm in Jalan Bani Bu Ali, around 280 km from Muscat on November 20. A part of the bullet remained inside his chin while another part pierced through his tongue and nose and landed in his brain, a hospital release said December 31.

Though the bullet parts inside his chin was partly removed at a government hospital in Oman, he was brought to the VPS Lakeshore Hospital here on December 18 to remove those inside his brain and chin, it said. Dr Sudish Karunakaran, Head of Neurosurgery, who led the team of doctors who performed the task, said the surgery was done in two parts.

First, they did the frontal craniotomy to open the skull in order to access the brain, the release said. Later, a team of ENT and oral and maxillofacial surgeons removed the remaining bullet part inside the boy's chin. The team took eight hours to complete the surgery that took place on December 20. "I was on ventilator support for four days after the surgery and I am now fully recovered and ready for discharge," the boy was quoted as saying in the release.