Man stable after fingers cut off

Waikato Air Ambulance. Photo / Herald on Sunday

A Rotorua man is recovering after losing two fingers when his hand was trapped in a crushing machine at work yesterday but the hospital declined to say whether his fingers had been reattached.

The 20-year-old suffered an extremely traumatic injury to his hand in a crushing machine at a Rotorua engineering firm, losing two fingers and damaging others, Rotorua district operations manager Norm Riedinger said today

He was flown from Rotorua Hospital to Waikato Hospital along with his severed fingers which his workmates had acted quickly to put ice.

"From what I heard from the crews who attended they did an outstanding job," Mr Riedinger said

With this type of injury, it was imperative the victim underwent surgery to reattach the digits as soon as possible so blood flow could be restored to the severed parts.

"He was given the best chance all the way through, the responses were good: he got looked after by his work mates, the ambulance response was good and we had a quick turnaround from Rotorua Hospital to Waikato," he said.

A Waikato Hospital spokeswoman said this afternoon the man was in a stable condition but his family had requested that no other information was given out.

- NZPA