PHILADELPHIA — An 8-year-old boy who lost his hands and feet to a serious infection has become the youngest patient to receive a double-hand transplant.
Zion Harvey’s forearms were heavily bandaged, but his hands were visible as he flashed some big smiles this week at a hospital news conference. He demonstrated his still-delicate grip and described waking up with new hands as “weird at first, but then good.”
The boy, from the Baltimore suburb of Owings Mills, Md., received the transplant this month at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, although doctors did not publicly disclose the nearly 11-hour operation until this week.
A 40-person medical team used steel plates and screws to attach the old and new bones. Surgeons then painstakingly reconnected Zion’s arteries, veins, muscles, tendons and nerves.
“He woke up smiling,” said Dr. L. Scott Levin, who heads the hand transplant program. “There hasn’t been one whimper, one tear, one complaint.”
