Amina A., 12

Amina Abubakar is 12 years old she lives with her aged parents. Her mother is a house wife while her father is unemployed. She balances her studies between an Islamic school and tutorials that help her keep up with Western education. She is friendly and always eager to help others, qualities that her friends and family admire deeply. With a dream of becoming a teacher someday, Amina pours her love of learning into everything she does. Reading is her favorite hobby, and you’ll often find her lost in a book during her free time. Those who know her best describe Amina as someone who truly lights up the room with her presence. Amina sustained a traumatic brain injury and skull fracture from the car accident three weeks ago. The skull fracture and possible underlying damage to brain tissue, blood vessels, or cervical vertebrae can cause persistent headaches as the injury heals. Her inability to fully turn her head right or left suggests neck muscle spasm, ligament strain, or possible cervical spine involvement from the impact. The required surgical correction of the depressed skull fracture - 1. Craniectomy 2. Duroplasty 3. Cranioplasty

Aisha Adamu, a 12-year-old girl, was admitted on June 12th 2026 after a road traffic accident left her with an open depressed skull fracture and in-driven bone fragments. She had surgery the next day — a craniectomy, duroplasty, and cranioplasty on June 15th — which went well and she tolerated it without complications. During her hospital stay until July 8th, the team closely monitored her for infection and CSF leakage, provided wound care, and watched her neurological status as she steadily improved. Now discharged in stable condition, Aisha will continue recovery with regular visits to the Neurosurgical Outpatient Clinic, clean and dry wound care at home, prescribed medications, and careful watching for any signs of fever, vomiting, or changes in consciousness.

She presented with headache, neck stiffness and lacerations on the scalp as a result of a road traffic accident 20 days earlier. Her brain CT scan showed depressed skull fracture with in-driven fragments. The neck stiffness is a sign of meningitis complicating the open depressed skull fracture due to delay intervention. Complications of a depressed skull fracture can include immediate life-threatening issues like intracranial hemorrhage (brain bleeding), cerebrospinal fluid leaks, and direct traumatic brain injury from bone fragments pressing into the tissue. Over time, patients are also at a significantly higher risk for developing post-traumatic epilepsy (seizures), persistent neurological deficits, and severe intracranial infections like meningitis if the protective dura mater is torn. The prognosis for this patient is excellent if appropriate neurosurgical intervention is performed promptly. Given her young age and the absence of reported severe neurological deficits, successful surgery offers a high likelihood of preventing infection, preserving neurological function, and allowing her to return to normal developmental, educational, and social activities. However, delay in treatment significantly increases the risk of avoidable complications, some of which may lead to lifelong disability or become life-threatening.