By attaching a man’s severed hand to his leg, doctors have performed an extraordinary operation to save it. After a month the man’s hand was successfully grafted back on to his wrists. Throughout the month, the nerves and tendons had healed from the trauma.

Zhou had his left hand chopped off during a work @cc*ident involving a spinning blade machine and it happened after this. He was rushed to the Xiangya Hospital in Changsha. There doctors assessed his situation. With an operation, Dr Tang Juyu, head of microsurgery at the hospital, decided he could give Zhou a chance to ‘revive’ his lost hand. He and his team had already successfully performed the surgery in 2013 under similar circumstances.

Doctors were unable to attach it right away because both Zhou’s arm and severed hand were badly wounded following the @cc*ident. So they opted instead to allow the nerves and tendons to heal with time. This meant Dr Tang and his team decided to graft Zhou’s left hand to his right ankle.
Dr Tang said, ‘ Under normal temperatures, a severed finger needs to resume blo*od supply within 10 hours, but that time is even shorter for a separated limb. If a limb is short of bl*ood for too long, its tissues d!e and it will be unsalvageable.’

While attached to his ankle for more than one month, Mr Zhou’s hand was kept ‘alive’ and left to heal. Now Dr Tang and his team have successfully reattached it to his arm in a 10-hour surgery. Zhou is now able to move his fingers slightly according to Dr Tang but he will still need much rehabilitation before regaining full use of his hand.