Delhi doctors save girl's severed thumb

Delhi doctors save girl's severed thumb in miracle operation after local medics said her case was hopeless

The power of the internet and the skills of surgeons of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in the Capital came to the rescue of a nine-year-old girl, whose thumb was miraculously reattached by doctors almost 24 hours after it was cut off in a farm machine. 

Prerna Singh was playing in her village, Nangla Sabal at Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, on March 18 when she accidentally put her hand into a fodder-cutting machine, which lopped off her right thumb at the base. 

Her family rushed her from one local doctor to another, only to be told her thumb could not be attached. Having lost hope in the local doctors, her father Nahar Singh went to Agra to seek medical aid for his daughter, however, every hospital there too turned him down.

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Relieved family: Prerna Singh, pictured with her parents, had her thumb reattached by Ganga Ram doctors

Not ready to give up, Singh browsed the internet and found out about Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and its specialisation in such cases. The family then approached the department of plastic surgery at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital on March 19, about 20 hours after Prerna's thumb was detached from her hand. 

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Rescued: Surgeons said the thumb recovered with miraculous speed

"We routinely do re-plantation of various parts of the body but this case was unique as more than 20 hours had elapsed since the amputation. Usually after 12 hours, in the case of a thumb, its tissues become dead and re-plantation is usually not successful," said Dr Mahesh Mangal, senior consultant in the department of plastic surgery. 

Two teams of plastic surgeons took Prerna to the operating theatre, cleaned her thumb and the amputated stump, and identified the nerves, vessels and tendons. Bones were fixed, tendons were sutured, and vessels and nerves were repaired. 

Finally, after a five-hour-long surgery, the thumb was reattached to her hand. 

"The results in this case were miraculous as the blood started flowing and the thumb turned pink in colour on the operating table itself," Dr Mangal said. 

Six days after the surgery, Prerna is now fit to be discharged, but it will take six to eight weeks for the thumb to be completely functional, the doctor said. 

According to the doctors, an amputated part should be brought to a medical centre within four to six hours. Meanwhile, it should be well-preserved in a plastic pouch, which should further be stored in an ice bag, but the amputed part should not come in direct contact with ice.

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