Skull Base Penetration Due to Unusual Bilateral External Auditory Canal Injury in a Child Accused of Witchcraft: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Skull Base Penetration Due to Unusual Bilateral External Auditory Canal Injury in a Child Accused of Witchcraft: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Children are increasingly subjected to trauma for various reasons as part of global problems that needs attention. Literature is inundated with a plethora of childhood death resulting from trauma. Self inflicted injury though worrisome, may occur unintentionally in a child's life but when inflicted by adult on a child and in particular the parents following accusation of witch- craft, then the child faces real challenge in terms of safety and future up keep in the hands of the same parent. Varieties of injuries are expected in trauma of this nature posing challenges to the physicians who first evaluated this type of patients, as well as the managing surgeons. The severity and extent of such injuries depend on the direction of penetration and the anatomic site involved, and the risk of vascular, neurological, and ear injuries is particularly high. Children have also been known to suffer injuries from abuse or neglect by parents and other care givers .Such injuries include recurrent fractures, SIS, burns etc. Deliberate or unintentional injuries also may occur.

We present an unusual case of such deliberate harm in a child who sustained bilateral auditory canal injury inflicted by a parent who accused him of witchcraft. Pure Tone Average (PTA) threshold obtained 7 days after hospitalization showed bilateral mild hearing loss (left and right pure tone average of 29 and 35 dB respectively. A repeat PTA performed 30 days later showed a bilateral normal hearing threshold of 23 and 21 dB for both ears. To the best of our knowledge, no such case has been reported from our environment before.