Brazilian president in intensive care after emergency brain surgery | Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is recovering in intensive care after undergoing emergency surgery after an MRI scan revealed a brain hemorrhage.

At around 9:20 a.m. local time (1220 GMT), the medical team at the Sírio Libanês Hospital in São Paulo held a press conference to announce that the operation to drain a hematoma caused by bleeding in the president’s brain was successful be.

“The president has made good progress; “He came back from surgery almost fully awake and was extubated,” said Lula’s personal physician, cardiologist Dr. Roberto Kalil. He added that Lula is “now stable, speaking, eating normally and will remain under observation in the coming days.”

According to doctors, 79-year-old Lula underwent trephination: a 3 cm hole was drilled in the skull to insert a drainage and remove the bleeding.

Doctors attributed the intracranial hemorrhage to a domestic accident, a fall Lula suffered in October while showering at the Alvorada Palace, the official presidential residence in Brasília. The accident forced Lula to cancel his trip to a Brics summit in Russia and left him with multiple stitches.

Lula was admitted to a hospital in Brasília on Monday evening after complaining of a headache. When the bleeding was discovered, he was transferred 620 miles (1,000 km) south to one of Brazil’s best hospitals for surgery.

The O Globo newspaper said Lula arrived in São Paulo around 11 p.m. on Monday and at 4:45 a.m. he underwent the operation. “Throughout the entire journey, both in the ambulance and on the plane, the President was lucid, alert and speaking, just as he is now – lucid, alert, speaking and eating,” Dr. Ana Helena Germoglio, who was the first to look after Lula after his fall in October and again on Monday.

Lula was accompanied on the trip and in the hospital by First Lady Rosangela da Silva, known as Janja.

Kalil repeatedly emphasized during the press conference that the president “has not suffered a brain injury and has no neurological impairments.” He said the hematoma had “completely dried up.”

The president will remain under observation in intensive care for at least 48 hours and is not expected to return to Brasília – where the executive headquarters and presidential residence are located – until early next week, the doctor said.

Lula’s personal doctor also said that if all went well, the president could resume air travel, including international travel.

“He spoke to me normally (this morning). He understands what happened and asks the usual questions a patient would ask after surgery. The fact that he remains under observation in the intensive care unit is primarily for safety. It’s a protocol,” Kalil said.

A medical bulletin is expected to be released early Wednesday morning.