Bullet removed from heart after 40 years

HANOI - DOCTORS have removed a bullet from the heart of a Vietnamese soldier nearly 40 years after he was shot by US troops during the Vietnam war.

Mr Le Dinh Hung, 60, underwent surgery at a Hanoi hospital on Friday and is recovering quickly, said Dr Nguyen Sinh Hien, who spent three hours operating on Mr Hung.

'It is the strangest case that I have ever seen,' Dr Hien said. 'Normally a person with a bullet in his heart would die immediately if they didn't have surgery right away.'

Mr Hung said he feels much better now and the pain in his chest has eased.

'I was very lucky to survive,' he said from his hospital bed.

Mr Hung was shot during a 1968 battle in Quang Tri province near the former demilitarised zone that separated north and south Vietnam. He had been living with chronic pain ever since.

One year after Mr Hung was shot, doctors tried unsuccessfully to remove the bullet.

Dr Hien said the bullet went through Mr Hung's stomach, damaged his cardiac valve and came to rest at the back of his heart.

ASSOCIATED PRESS