Zac Mitchell, 20, was injured in April while working on a remote farming property in Western Australia.
“A bull kicked my hand into the fence,” Mr Mitchell said of the incident.
He underwent two unsuccessful operations to reattach his thumb before doctors opted to relocate his big toe in surgery lasting eight hours.
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Despite initial reluctance, the cattle worker agreed to the transplant operation at the Sydney Eye Hospital….
“It is a bit of a crazy idea – they [patients] do not want to be injured in another part of their body,” said [lead plastic surgeon Dr Sean Nicklin]. “[However] even if you have got four good fingers, if you do not have something to pinch against them, your hand has lost a huge amount of its function.”
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Mr Mitchell will need more than 12 months of rehabilitation, but he plans to return to farm work.
The Sydney Eye Hospital said it was rare to transplant a complete toe, like in Mr Mitchell’s case, although partial toe relocations were more common.
“A lot of people think their balance and walking is going to be significantly affected which it generally isn’t,” Dr. Nicklin said.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Australian man’s thumb surgically replaced by toe
