A man severely mutilated his hand while threshing grain. His hand was almost amputated – the cut went in an arc from the thumb to the little finger. But the surgeons of St. Luke’s Hospital were able to save the limb.
37-year-old Vasyl from the city of Peremyshlyany, Lviv Oblast. He was injured at home while threshing wheat. The man recalls: “Something prevented the mill from working, probably it was clogged with dust or dirt. I decided to sift through the grain with my hand.”
Suddenly, the teeth grabbed the thumb and pulled Vasyl’s entire hand through the mill. The man immediately turned off the device, wrapped the mangled limb with a cloth and ran to his friend to take him to a local hospital. There he was given first aid and sent to Lviv, to St. Luke’s Hospital, which has a hand surgery department.
Doctors in Lviv found that the man had a traumatic amputation of the right hand, thumb and little finger, multiple fractures, bone and soft tissue defects, as well as damage to tendons, arteries and muscles. Therefore, it was necessary to operate immediately.
The doctors of the hand surgery department “stitched” the fingers, fixed the bones, performed plastic surgery of the skin and restoration of the tendons. All this was done using microsurgical techniques and instruments. The long and troublesome operation was successful.
However, in the postoperative period, the wound took a long time to heal, and Vasyl’s hand was very swollen. A hematoma was formed. Therefore, repeated surgical treatment and plastic surgery were necessary.
Despite the high risk of amputation, doctors managed to preserve the viability of the patient’s hand and fingers. A month after the injury, Vasyl’s wounds have already healed, the fractures are growing, sensitivity is returning. Now the patient works daily with a rehabilitator and the first positive results are already visible: the function of the tendons improves and the range of motion increases.
Doctors remind! If such injuries occur, it is necessary to contact the hospital where grafting operations are performed as soon as possible. After all, time directly affects the success of replantation.