A cattle worker in Australia has had his big toe surgically removed and attached to his hand after his thumb was severed in an accident.
Zac Mitchell was injured while working on a remote farming property in Western Australia.
“A bull kicked my hand into the fence,” Mr. Mitchell said.
His fellow workers attempted to preserve the thumb immediately after the accident by putting it in a cooler with some ice but were unable to save it.
The 20-year-old underwent two unsuccessful operations to reattach his thumb before doctors from Sydney Eye Hospital in Australia opted to relocate his big toe in surgery, which lasted eight hours, ‘BBC News’ reported.
‘A crazy idea’
Despite initial reluctance, Mr. Mitchell agreed to the transplant operation.
“It is a bit of a crazy idea — the patients do not want to be injured in another part of their body,” said Sean Nicklin, lead plastic surgeon at Sydney Eye Hospital.
“But, 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,” Mr. Nicklin said. It is rare to transplant a complete toe, like in Mr. Mitchell’s case, though partial relocations were more common, the hospital said.
“A lot of people think their balance and walking is going to be significantly affected, which it generally is not,” Mr. Nicklin said.
