It's Magic - Almost A Miracle

It has been a full year since X. had a horrific accident, falling off the metro train and trapped under the wheels last August, in Madrid. He arrived at the hospital with the left hand practically all but completely destroyed, leaving only the thumb intact. The right arm was sectioned from just above the elbow, but the fingers were intact. To all indication he would have no hands at all for the rest of his life.

The doctors, however, wanted to try to save one hand for him. Without able to programme it (they had only 6 hours to decide and carry out the op or it won't be effected at all), they quickly formed an emergency team of 15, surgeons, anaesthetists, traumatologists, to do a rare re-transplant, technically called here 'reimplante reverso agudo' - acute reversed re-implant, to put the amputated fingers from the right hand to his left hand, but having to reverse the positions as the pictures shown below: the positions of the little finger and the index finger had taken each other's natural location.

This infrequent operation was the first done in Spain, but 5th in the world. The other 4 cases done before were; one in China, 2 in America, and the last one in Turkey.

Today, one year later, Mr. X can use his left hand with 5 fingers intact. He can work the mobile phone, helps himself to drinks, grasp objects, and some other basic movements attending to daily sanitary functions. There's still a lot of rehabilitation to do, and the next challenge of the doctors will be helping to give him back the ability to write. Another similar operation was done in Valencia recently too, although that was programmed.

Isn't medical technology just mind boggling and wonderful?

Tags:hand,re-implant

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