Man has surgery to replace lost thumb with big toe
An Australian cattle worker who lost his thumb in a freak accident at work was the subject of a rare surgery to give him back all 10 digits.
Zac Mitchell, 20, was working on a farm in western Australia when a bull kicked his hand into a fence, detaching his thumb, according to the BBC.
Australian man's thumb surgically replaced by toe https://t.co/Pan4WfMu0b
— BBC Health News (@bbchealth) July 13, 2017
His thumb was preserved in a cooler, but after two unsuccessful surgeries Mitchell faced a difficult decision. Plastic surgeons at Sydney Eye Hospital approached him with the idea of transplanting his big toe onto his hand.
“It is a bit of a crazy idea - they [patients] do not want to be injured in another part of their body," lead surgeon Sean Nicklin told the BBC.
Mitchell eventually agreed to the surgery, which lasted eight hours. He faces a 12-month rehabilitation period before he can return to work, but his mother told the BBC that his walking was almost back to normal just two weeks after the surgery.
Read more at the BBC.
