Chinese Doctors Attach Hand to Foot During Emergency Procedure

Chinese doctors where able to save a man’s severed hand by attaching it to his ankle. According to BBC News, Xiao Wei lost his right hand in a work-related accident. To make matters worse, he was unable to have it reattached to his arm right away.

The Huffington Post reported that Xiao Wei lost his hand in November. One of the man’s doctors told reporters that his injuries were too complex to reattach the hand right away. “Besides ripping injuries, his arm was also flattened. We had to clear and treat his injuries before taking on the hand reattachment surgery.”

Xiao Wei’s hand was saved by grafting it to the man’s ankle, according to reports. BBC News stated that doctors kept the man’s hand alive by attaching it to his left ankle and by “borrowing” a blood supply from arteries in his left leg.

Mr Cairian Healy of the Royal College of Surgeons in England said although procedures such as these were rare, they were not inconceivable.

“The Chinese are pretty experienced in microsurgery,” he said. “And the concept of saving a severed part of the body by attaching it to another part of the body to give it a blood supply is well-recognized.”

The Inquisitr recently reported on another unique case where a young woman’s face was regrown on her breast. The report stated that 17-year-old Xu Jianmei was heinously disfigured in a fire when she was only five years-old, and this tragedy left her face scarred and blighted, and without an ear, eyelids, or a chin. After her operation, Xu Jianmei had a new chin, two eyelids, an ear and, even more importantly, a new smile.

In the case of Xiao Wei, doctors were able to relocate his hand from his left ankle to his right arm, though doctors have said he will have to undergo a number of followup surgeries. They have high hopes that Xiao Wei will regain full use of his hand.

[Image via Shutterstock/Benjamin Haas]