Daily Mail - 28.08.2019

Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 28, 2019 Page 31

WHEN carpenter Anthony Lel-

liott sliced through his hand

with a circular saw, surgeons

feared he was beyond help.

But the 46-year-old has been spared

from full-on amputation after

17 hours of surgery – and two weeks

of having his hand sewn to his groin.

Mr Lelliott had been cutting floor

boards when disaster struck. His left

hand was almost completely severed in

two places – the base of the palm and

just below the fingers.

Remarkably, surgeons managed to

reconnect the nerves and blood vessels

from his wrists to his fingers in an over-

night operation.

Even then the prognosis was poor, with

his palm badly exposed. So, in a further

operation, surgeons stitched his hand to

his groin so the skin could regenerate.

Mr Lelliott, from Walton-on-Thames,

Touch of genius

Surgeons save mangled hand – by sewing it to groin

Gruelling op: Mr Lelliott’s hand was

saved – but his middle finger was lost

Recovery: Mr

Lelliott, left,

with Mr

Adlard and

physical

therapist

Millie Chu

By Ben Spencer

Medical Correspondent

ing in the intensive care unit.’

Consultant plastic surgeon Roger

Adlard was on call at St George’s

Hospital in south London when Mr

Lelliott was admitted on May 30.

‘Time was against us. His

detached fingers were getting

warm and left too long without

blood they would rapidly decom-

pose and be impossible to re-

attach,’ he said. ‘It’s probably the

most complex amputation I’ve

had to deal with.

‘There are many surgeons who

would think it was unsalvageable.’

After the first 13-hour operation,

medics realised there wasn’t

enough skin to cover the repairs

in Mr Lelliott’s palm – and his

middle finger was not recovering

as well as hoped.

In a second operation they

removed the finger, using the skin

for more repairs, and then

attached his hand to his groin to

borrow skin from there.

This third procedure – called a

pedicled groin flap – involved cut-

ting a section of skin in Mr Lelli-

ott’s groin and lifting it like a flap

to cover the missing skin from his

hand. It was sewn in place and left

there for two weeks.

Eventually the skin from his

groin grew new ‘roots’ on his hand

• and the surgeons cut it free.

‘There was blood

spurting everywhere’

has now regained much of the sensa-

tion in his hand and in time doctors

believe he will be able to use it as well

as most people. Describing the acci-

dent, he said: ‘It was like an out-of-body

experience... I could see myself and see

what I’d done. There was blood spurt-

ing out everywhere.

‘All I remember was coming through

the doors into A&E and being greeted

by a phenomenal amount of people.

The care I’ve received has been fantas-

tic and I’ve got so much gratitude for

everyone, from the paramedics who

were first on the scene to the staff work-