In an unusual incident, a 37-year-old woman Pavana who raises cattle at Kolar’s Vanarasi village in Karnataka state accidentally cut her right hand in an electric grass cutter. If this sort of amputation happens then the treatment (surgery) should be done in 4-5 hrs. After receiving first aid at a Kolar hospital the cut hand was appropriately wrapped in a gauze piece, placed in a crushed ice box, and brought to a hospital in Bengaluru within three hours. The woman in a conscious state reached the Bengaluru hospital at noon and immediately she was taken for surgery.
Dr. Kannan Karuppiah, hand and microvascular surgeon, and Dr. Vithal Malmande, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon at Hosmat Hospital in Bengaluru did the surgery and treated the woman. In an interview with Lokmat representative Anubha Jain, Dr. Kannan Karuppiah said that in the 8-hour-long surgery, the hand was reattached. The bones, tendons, ligaments, nerves, arteries, and veins of the injured hand were repaired completely. Dr. Kannan informed that it was an extremely complicated and critical surgery that was done under a microscope. The structure was magnified 15 to 20 times. He said that it was a very rare incident because usually in a grass-cutting machine a hand can be crushed but here the hand was completely cut. After surgery, the patient stayed in the hospital for five days and now she is on antibiotics and taking a blood thinner to avoid clotting in the reconstructed blood vessels. The doctor informed that after discharge the woman was doing well.
Regarding full recovery, the doctor said that with this kind of injury, it will never be 100% recovery like before. In this case, activity, including sensation, making a fist, bending, and straightening will reach 70-80% of the capacity. After a lot of rigorous physiotherapy and exercises, she will be able to do her regular farming chores after three months. She also needs a couple of small surgeries for full recovery.