A SURGEON in Brazil has saved a man’s hand by implanting it in a pocket in his stomach following an industrial accident.

    Carlos Mariotti, 42, was operating a machine at a factory when his hand was sucked into the equipment, severing two of his fingers.

    Colleagues rushed to his aid, wrenching the hand out of the machinery and swathing it in bandages, before Mariotti was rushed to the hospital.

    Boris Brandao, an orthopaedic and traumatology surgeon at Santa Otilia hospital in southern Brazil, believed he could save Mariotti’s hand.

    He did so by embedding the worker’s hand in pocket created in his stomach, where it will remain for 42 days while it grows new tissue and tendon.

    Eventually it is hoped that the hand will be capable of receiving a skin graft.

    “Mr. Marriotti suffered a de-gloving injury which left him with very little skin on the palm and back of his hand, exposing the bones and tendons inside,” Brandao said. “This was a very large and delicate injury and the only place we could fit the whole hand was in the abdomen. Without this procedure, there would be a high risk of infection and the tissue and tendons would rot away.”

    (SD-Agencies)