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Surgery Saved My Life

  • Watchlist
  • 2006-2008
  • 1 Season
  • Discovery Channel
  • Documentary
  • TV-14
  • Watchlist

The documentary-style series SURGERY SAVED MY LIFE follows people with life-threatening diseases or injuries as they undergo surgery and face the serious physical risks and emotional repercussions of their procedures. In addition to the personal stories, viewers get all the details of the surgeries themselves -- both by watching the actual operations (complete with bloody close-ups) and through digital representations of the repairs. The stories are often intense and emotional, as in one episode that introduced viewers two children stricken with scoliosis -- one living in New York and the other in Sierra Leone. The children have the same surgeon, who grew up poor in Ghana, and while the doctor is equally kind to both his young patients, viewers can't help but feel the sharp contrast in the type of medical care received by the two children because of their environments.

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Cast & Crew See All

Ed Cunningham
Narrator
Gretchen Miller
Self
Dr. Jaquiss
Self

Season 1 Episode Guide See All

Episode 1

Extreme Spine Surgery

Thu, Nov 30, 2006

Ghanaian-born New Yorker Dr. Oheneba Boachie-Adjei is arguably the world's top surgeon of spinal deformities. We follow his most challenging surgery to date, to save the life a 15-year-old boy from Sierra Leone whose back is bent forward at almost 90 degrees. We also see him complete an eight-year-long surgical project on a 10-year-old girl from Long Island. Without Dr. Boachie, her bent back would have crushed her lungs and killed her at age 2. Now, at age 10, she's about to enter junior high, and Dr. Boachie must do one final surgery to free her from the back brace she has worn for almost a decade. The surgeries each carry huge risks - both children may emerge from them walking, or both may never walk again.

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