Victim's fingers switched but saved

Plastic surgeons hope they have given Robert Harkness the prospect of a useful left hand after he accidentally sawed off three fingers and the thumb.

Two of the fingers and the thumb were re-attached in a 10-hour operation at Waikato Hospital after the 47-year-old's firewood-cutting accident about 9am on Thursday.

The former wharf worker from the western Bay of Plenty was helping a friend cut logs at Papamoa using an electric saw, understood to be like a skillsaw. He bent down to pick up a log and sliced through his left hand.

He is left-handed.

The saw took off the thumb, index, middle and ring fingers and the tip of the little finger.

St John paramedics pulled the missing fingers from Mr Harkness's severed glove. They were wrapped in Glad Wrap, chilled with a bag of frozen vegetables and taken to Tauranga Hospital in a chillybin.

Mr Harkness was flown to Waikato Hospital in the TrustPower TECT rescue helicopter just before midday and fast-tracked to surgery.

Specialist plastic surgeon Zak Moaveni with a registrar and up to 13 other theatre staff re-attached the thumb in its proper place. But they shifted the index finger to the middle position, middle to ring and discarded the remains of the ring finger after using it for "spare parts" - vein, nerve and skin grafts.

Mr Moaveni said fingers were relocated to give Mr Harkness the best chance of a useable hand with opposing fingers and thumb.

The index finger was the best of the fingers and the ring finger was too damaged to put back.

"You have to work with what you have and put the best fingers on to the best bases to try and get the best result."

Mr Harkness's hand was doing well yesterday, although he was still in the high-risk 48 hours after surgery; blood vessels could block.

He faces at least a year of physiotherapy and rehabilitation.

"Potentially ... he should have quite a useful hand that he can grip things with and manipulate small tasks," Mr Moaveni said.

The surgery was complicated by the fingers having been severed individually rather than with the hand, and because a powered saw blade removed more tissue than a clean cut would.

Mr Harkness's daughter Kylie, 21, a dairy farmer and new mother, said her father was a "stubborn old bastard" and was handling the trauma well.

"I don't think it will stop him."

- Additional reporting BAY OF PLENTY TIMES