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Doctors use shark skin grafts to treat burned terror suspect
Last updated at 09:37am on 24.07.07Surgeons treating the terror suspect burned in the Glasgow Airport car bomb attempt are going to use "grafts" of a skin substitute made from shark cartilage and cow tendons.
Kafeel Ahmed, 27, is being treated at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
The process is called Integra Dermal Regeneration Template. "It tricks the body into creating new skin cells," explained Steve Jeffrey, a surgeon who worked in Australia perfecting the treatment.
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Police wrestle Ahmed to the ground after the terror attack at Glasgow Airport
Silicone implanted with shark skin extracts is laid on the burns for two weeks before it is removed and replaced with a layer of skin thinner than a graft.
Although the latest technology is being used - at a cost of more than £20,000 - Ahmed is still critical and in a coma.
He is under constant armed police guard at the hospital.
Ahmed allegedly crashed a Jeep Cherokee into the terminal building at Glasgow Airport on June 30, a day after police found two unexploded car bombs in central London.
Dramatic pictures of police wrestling him to the ground appeared across the media.
Ahmed was initially treated at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley. He was transferred under sedation to Glasgow Royal Infirmary in an intensive care ambulance.
Reader views (4)
I hate to say it or even think it.....but he wanted to die. Why not let him? Why should the good law-abiding citizens of the UK pay 20000 pounds to save the life of a person who vowed to take THEIR lives?!
But I guess that is what it means to live in a western, caring democracy with Christian values! We even love our ENEMIES!
- Larry, Minneapolis, 24/07/2007 16:06
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Why are we spending such sums of money on this man, surely it would be better spent on others.
- Mike Melbourne, Bedford, 24/07/2007 16:05
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Too bad the UK has to pay for all this treatment.
- Gus, San Francisco USA, 24/07/2007 15:52
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You have people across the UK fighting with their local hospitals and GPs over cancer or life saving treatments that cost a couple of pence each and then this terror suspect gets 20 grands worth of NHS treatment.
- Gm, London, 24/07/2007 11:17
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