SANTA ANA : Bullet Removed From Brain of Girl, 8

Eight-year-old Fartun Mohamed had been walking around with a bullet lodged in her brain for four years, a reminder of the civil war in her homeland of Somalia. Doctors there told her family nothing could be done to remove the round.

This week, however, they were proven wrong when a neurosurgeon from Western Medical Center here successfully removed the high-caliber, Soviet-made bullet. Dr. Mark E. Anderson, who performed the two-hour procedure Wednesday night, said had the surgery not been done, the bullet could “migrate further” into her brain and cause additional neurological deterioration.

“The patient has a great deal of strength and character . . . She is doing just fine,” Anderson said at a press conference Thursday.

The bullet, which struck Fartun while she was playing in her front yard in Mogadishu, has already rendered the girl partially paralyzed. She has limited vision in her right eye. She cannot move her right arm, and movement in her right leg has also been affected.

Fartun’s family has been in consultation with the staff at Western Medical for several months, Anderson said. Hospital officials were concerned that the bullet, which lodged at the lower left of her cranium and the part of the brain that controls the vision, could be an explosive projectile or neurologically toxic. They consulted with military experts at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, who later confirmed that the bullet had traces of neurotoxins, Anderson said.

After the surgery, the bullet was given to the Orange Country Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad to be destroyed. Speaking through a cousin who interpreted for him, Fartun’s father, Abdi Mohamed, said Thursday he “was glad the surgery was done.”

“We have been seeing many doctors and they told us they cannot operate,” said Mohamed, 35.

Mohamed, his wife and five children immigrated to Orange County 18 months ago under refugee asylum status. Fartun enrolled at Dr. A.J. Cook Elementary School in Garden Grove as a third-grader and has been doing well in all classes, Anderson said.

Fartun will remain in the Intensive Care Unit for the next several days, and should be able to return to school in several weeks and resume her normal activities, Anderson said.

Meantime, she plans to go trick or treating with other children in the hospital on Halloween, her family and hospital staff said.

Said a relative: “She wants to be a vampire.”