Thumbs up! Surgeon's toe triumph
A man who accidentally cut off his thumb has had his big toe
attached in its place by surgeons.
James Byrne, 29, severed the thumb on his left hand last December
while sawing through a piece of wood.
After an attempt to re-attach his damaged thumb was unsuccessful,
Umraz Khan, plastic surgeon at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, transplanted
the big toe from his left foot on to his hand.
Mr Byrne, a paver and plant operator from Fishponds, Bristol, has an eight-year-old son
and with the thumb being the "dominant" digit, surgeons say that while losing his toe
may affect him in the short term, its use on his hand far outweighs the loss to his foot.
He said: "Mr Khan re-attached my thumb but it had been badly damaged and although
we tried everything, including leeches, to get the blood flowing again it didn't take.
"Mr Khan said to me 'You will have a thumb even if I have to take your toe'.
I thought he was joking,
but he was serious and nine months later here it is.
"The aesthetics of it don't bother me, I am just happy that it works, my work as a paver would have been
destroyed without the use of my hand because I couldn't pick up a brick without a thumb but now I hope
I can be back at work in a few months.
"I never thought it would work but the surgical teams and the nurses
have done such a fantastic job and the care has been amazing."
Mr Khan led two teams of surgeons and anaesthetists - one working on Mr Byrne's toe
while the other worked on his hand at the same time.
He said: "It is quite a rare thing to do and is a very complex micro-surgical procedure which
involves re-attaching the bone, nerves, arteries, tendons, ligaments and skin of the toe to the hand.
James will have to learn to re-balance, without his left great toe, on to the ball of the foot
but he will be able to walk and jog normally."
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