Howrah’s 37-year-old factory worker looks to rejoin work with reattached hand
Times of India | 14 December 2024
123 Kolkata: A 37-year-old factory worker, Arpan Samanta, is all set to embrace life with a rekindled hope and his replanted hand that got severed about a few months ago in a freak accident while handling a moulding machine at work. Thanks to the prompt medical attention and a subsequent life-saving limb reimplantation surgery, the Howrah resident is now looking forward to joining work again. The surgery that had lasted for about 8 hours was conducted three and a half months ago.
The accident took place at a factory in Howrah's Panchala on Aug 31. It resulted in a traumatic amputation of his hand. Without wasting time, his co-workers rushed him to Narayana Health, Howrah (NHH) along with the severed hand, around 25 km from the factory, in about three hours.
Doctors found that the patient was in shock as he had lost a significant amount of blood. The severed hand was cleaned of soot and grease, before being preserved in a refrigerator while preparations for the surgery were made. A surgical team led by plastic and microvascular surgeon, Aditya Kanoi, took up the intricate task of reattaching the amputated limb.
The procedure started by removing all the damaged tissue from both the amputation stump and the severed hand and evaluating the injury for the feasibility of re-plantation. Then the team reattached the hand's components, including the bones, arteries, veins, nerves, muscles, tendons, and skin. Subsequent procedures were carried out to repair severed nerves and ensure proper wound closure. Post-surgery, the patient was monitored under ICU care. Once the surgical wounds healed up and the bones got reunited, physiotherapy was initiated. The patient was discharged after three weeks and was on regular follow-up.
"If the patient had not reached the hospital within five to six hours , we could not have saved his limb. With physiotherapy and other rehabilitation, we expect better function to come back to the hand," said Kanoi.
Tapani Ghosh, facility director of NHH, hailed the medical team's efforts and the patient's willpower that had turned an accident into a story of hope.
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