Man's fingers saved by 'torso-attachment'

Doctors at Wellington's Hutt Hospital are aiming to save a Palmerston North man's fingers through an operation which has seen them sewn into his torso.

The man's right hand was badly damaged when it was caught in machinery in an accident early this month, The Dominion Post reported today

After two fingers were cut off -- leaving stumps -- and two left dangling from tendons that had been yanked out, the man was told the separated digits were too badly damaged to reattach.

The skin on the remaining fingers had also been peeled away, leaving three centimetre stumps of exposed bone.

Without tissue, the man was told his fingers would have to be shortened to just past the knuckle.

However, plastic surgeon Charles Davis instead opted to sew his fingers a few millimetres underneath a thin layer of skin on the torso to encourage new skin growth.

The procedure allows a skin flap to form which can be used to cover the bone stub.

After a month the torso skin grows over the ends of the finger bone and becomes finger skin, supplied with blood from vessels in the hand, rather than the torso.

The technique is used about once a year at the hospital.

The man is due to return to Hutt Hospital in two weeks for his fingers, with a new skin covering, to be separated from his torso.

- NZPA