MGH Doctors Reattach Fingers To Worker's Damaged Hands

A team of Harvard-affiliated surgeons last month restored seven fingers severed from the hands of a 21-year-old New Hampshire iron worker.

The 46-hour replantation operation, which was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), was remarkable not only for its duration, but also because the fingers survived an almost 40-hour delay between the time they were severed and the time they were reattached, Martin Bander, an MGH spokesman, said yesterday.

Michael Bates, the worker whose fingers were restored, suffered the accident September 4 while working an iron press machine in Bellows Falls, Vt. The operation was complicated because the press "not only severed, but crushed and chewed the fingers, destroying many blood vessels," Bander said.

After the accident, a Bellows Falls physician placed the severed digits in a sterile plastic bag, packed them in ice, and sent them with Bates by ambulance to MGH, Bender said.

For the next 46 hours, 44 surgeons, anestheseologists and nurses, led by James W. May Jr., assistant clinical professor of Surgery, worked in ten-hour shifts. Operating with the help of a microscope, the surgeons successfully reattached seven of the eight detached fingers and transplanted veins from the patient's legs and forearms to replace veins, Bender said.

"The replanted digit is never anywhere near normal, either in mobility or in sensibility," May said, adding that Bates will have to undergo a lengthy period of physical therapy.