'Close to death': Man with tumour twice the size of his head walks 160 kilometres to receive life-changing surgery

WARNING: This video and article contains graphic content.

For 36 years, Madagascan man Sambany lived with a tumour which was twice the size of his head and weighed 7.46 kilograms.

But that all changed when Sambany made the life-changing decision to trek 160 kilometres on foot from his remote Madagascan village to the hospital ship Africa Mercy.

Stream episode of Body Bizarre for free on 9Now.

In an episode of Body Bizarre filmed in 2015 – which you can stream for free on 9Now – 60-year-old Sambay arrived at the hospital ship "exhausted" and "close to death".

You can meet Sambany in the video above.

Sambay soon met a team of medical staff led by surgeon and chief medical officer Gary Parker who assessed his condition.

The team were shocked by the size of Sambany's growth.

"His tumour grew to the size it did because it's benign and because he couldn't get care," chief medical officer Gary said.

"You just get a monster tumour that in his case that continued to weigh him down in other situations it slowly suffocates you to death, so it's not good news."

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Gary informed Sambany that there were many risks involved in surgery – he could even bleed out and potentially face death.

But it was a risk Sambany was willing to take, telling doctors: "I'm like a dead man right now."

"[Sambany's] life wasn't worth living he was so desperate," Gary told cameras.

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With Sambany's tumour threatening to kill him, doctors were quick to operate. It was a tense time with catastrophic bleeding posing a huge problem.

"His surgery was difficult in that the sheer mass of the tumour is 7.4 kilograms and the human head weighs about four to five kilograms," Gary explained.

"With a tumour twice the size of his head it's hard to work our way around the edges.

"It's one of the biggest tumours of this type that I've seen."

But Sambany's risk and the doctor's efforts paid off, and two week later he had made an astonishing recovery.

You can see the moment Sambany saw himself for the first time after surgery in the video below.

For the first time in 36 years Sambany was free of his debilitating tumour and was delighted by the results of his surgery.

"I survived this big tumour, I feel a lot lighter," he beamed.

"This is the place I was saved, I'm always happy here.

Now I can take care of myself, now I'm happy to look in the mirror."

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To follow Sambany's full story watch the episode title 'Tumor Bigger Than My Head' of Season 4 Body Bizarre.

Stream episode of Body Bizarre for free on 9Now.