Eight-year-old Zion Harvey lost both his hands and feet to a serious infection when he was just two years old. At age 4, after two years of dialysis he was given a kidney from his mother.
"When I was two, I had to get my hands cut off because I was sick," Zion told the camera in a YouTube video.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia announced Tuesday that the Zion Harvey received two new hands earlier this month in the first pediatric hand transplant in the U.S.
The operation took 10 hours, it took a team of 40 doctors, nurses and other staff from plastic and reconstructive surgery, orthopaedic surgery, anaesthesiology and radiology.
“The success of Penn’s first bilateral hand transplant on an adult, performed in 2011, gave us a foundation to adapt the intricate techniques and coordinated plans required to perform this type of complex procedure on a child,” Dr.Levin added.
Doctors say Zion will spend weeks in physical rehab at the hospital before returning home.
Earlier this month, the world’s first bilateral hand transplant on a child was performed at The Children’s Hospital of...
Posted by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on Tuesday, July 28, 2015
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