Doctors perform seven-hour surgery to reattach severed hand of IT engineer in Nashik

Nashik: Rishikesh More, an IT engineer, did not flinch for a second when an accident severed a portion of his right arm just above the elbow.
Instead of breaking down, he pressed his wound as hard as he could to stop bleeding and summoned all his courage to call his friends and relatives over the phone and sought help from people around to get to a hospital as early as he could.
"In a matter of a few minutes, I was taken to a local hospital first, where the primary dressing was done. By the time my friends arrived, it was decided that I be taken to Nashik for replanting my amputated hand," Rishikesh (23) told TOI.
The incident occurred on April 12 around 7.15am when he was on his way home to Ahilyanagar from Nashik on a bike. He was hit by a truck when he was driving past Nimon village near Nandur Shingote.
He was rushed to Suvichar Hospital in Nashik within one-and-a-half hours of the accident. His friends carried the severed portion of the arm wrapped in ice.
"Soon after he arrived at the hospital, we immediately took him for surgery, which involved fixing the bone of the hand, followed by the repair of the brachial artery, four veins, and four nerves. For joining vessels and nerves, a special microvascular technique was used, which increases the success rate of surgery. Subsequently, all cut muscles and skin were repaired," said Dr Lalit Derle, a plastic and microvascular surgeon. He was accompanied by Dr Ravindranath Gaikwad, an orthopaedic surgeon, during the surgery. "The patient did not suffer injury on any other part of his body. He was wearing a helmet," said Dr Derle.
The surgery lasted seven hours. The doctors said the surgery was a challenge, involving transfusion of five units of blood. In the post-op period, he was monitored in the ICU.
Rishikesh said that he can now feel the sensation in his right hand. "The doctors have assured me that it will take at least a month for full recovery," he added.
In his rehabilitation phase, he will undergo intensive physiotherapy to achieve normal function of his right upper limb, said Dr Derle, adding that the entire procedure was possible due to great coordination by the team at the hospital and Dr Avinash Andhale and Dr Sham Patil. Rishikesh's father, Ravsaheb More, who is a retired teacher, said his son has been working in Nashik for the past year and did not like his son travelling such a long distance on a bike.