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As human beings, we’re prone to take things for granted. Limbs aren’t exempt from those things. However, you never know when a horrible accident could occur and change your day-to-day life forever. The Inquisitr explores this in a recent article titled “DIY Enthusiast Accidentally Chops Off His Hand: What He Does Next Is A Masterclass In True Grit.”

The author of the article writes, “The Daily Mail reports that Gary Lincoln, 48, was working on his own in a house in Cardiff with an electric angle cutter which was fitted with a safety guard, when jacket sleeve got tangled up in the power tool. Within a fraction of a second, the angle cutter had severed Mr. Lincoln’s hand from his wrist and left it hanging on by a tiny bit of flesh and skin. Mr Lincoln, the owner of an interior design firm, revealed that when he accidentally chopped his hand off, he hardly even felt it. ‘I didn’t feel any pain at all. It was like hundreds and thousands of tiny electric shocks that didn’t hurt, like very intense pins and needles.’ Calmly putting the severed hand into his sleeve ‘to hold everything together,’ Mr. Lincoln asked neighbors if they would kindly call him an ambulance to take him to the Welsh Centre for Burns and Plastic Surgery at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital because he was somewhat incapacitated to drive himself.”

Mr. Lincoln may have unknowingly put himself in the market for an invention developed by three Austrian men, as detailed in a recent Biotechin article titled “Bionic reconstruction gives mind controlled functional hands to amputees.” Manish Muhuri of Biotechin writes, “The prosthetic hand is made up of numerous sensors that respond to electrical impulses in the muscles, and as their brains were trained to control the prosthetic limb, within just three months, the men were able to perform everyday tasks such as pouring water and handling objects. Professor Simon Kay and Daniel Wilks from UK, experts in transplant technology, are both hopeful that the bionic reconstruction technique could help to advance prosthetics treatments. They said in a statement: ‘The present findings – and others – are encouraging, because this approach provides additional neural inputs into prosthetic systems that otherwise would not exist. However, the final verdict will depend on long-term outcomes, which should include assessment of in what circumstances and for what proportion of their day patients wear and use their prostheses.’”

While this is obviously exciting news for the future, people with severe hand injuries need reconstruction surgery options they can depend on now. Rex E. Moulton-Barrett, M.D. is an internationally known and acknowledged surgeon, who among his many specialities, provides hand reconstruction surgery. Dr. Moulton-Barrett is board certified in two distinct surgical specialties, The American Board of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and The American Board of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

Our office offers a number of different hand reconstruction options, including tendon repair, relieving carpal tunnel syndrome, and grafting. Following surgery, swelling can subside after several weeks but seeing the full effects could take months.

If you’re interested in hand reconstruction surgery, contact Dr. Moulton-Barrett for a consultation.