Sydney Surgeons Had To Transplant His Toe On Hand

Bull riding is one of the most dangerous professions in the world. It demands a man to be strong and able to control huge animals who mostly know no mercy to their owners or people who work with them. These giant killing machines have more strength than any other animal tamed by humans.

However, 20-year old Zac Mitchell from Australia was to brave to afraid of cut bulls. This is why he had chosen a job like this to make his living. He knew how to deal with bulls and thought they have learned to respect him too.

That was a regular spring morning and nothing foreboded the tragedy. Zac Mitchell was working on a remote cattle station in Western Australia state when his hand was kicked by a bull and thrust against a fence, slicing off his right thumb.

But even after the accident, Zac didn’t lose control. He took his thumb, chopped off in a tussle with a bull, and placed it among cold beers, hoping doctors to put it right in its place. He wrapped his hand with a towel and asked his boss took him to the hospital as soon as possible.

He took the strongest painkiller he could find to make those 130 kilometers to the nearest hospital. Is there a need to say it took too long? On the other hand – the injure was too complicated – the bull has scraped a large patch of skin and that finger was completely separated from Mitchell’s palm.

The surgeons did their best taking the whole two attempts of reattaching that thumb to where it has been for Zac’s entire life. Doctors there even suggested the remedy was to surgically sow the bloodied stump on Mr. Mitchell’s hand into his groin and leave it there for three weeks to let the skin grow over. But their attempts failed.

As soon as it became clear that nothing is going to work for his thumb, Zac just took the situation the way it was and even started thinking of a plastic one instead. But the surgeons came in with another crazy idea. They offered to cut a big toe on the corresponding fit and adjust it to his hand.

Mitchell confessed he first took it for a very bad joke. The young man claims he was in shock when realized the doctors weren’t joking at all. They said it was a normal practice. Such surgeries are carried out all over the world when there is no other chance to save the situation.

It took the patient a few weeks to agree for such a surgery. He says that the hardest thing was to accept the fact that after all that pain and blood he will have to come over it once more but with his foot this time.

His mom was his biggest support and together they took the right decision. After hours of waiting and weeks in bends she could finally see her boy with all 5 fingers on his injured hand and in just 2 weeks he stopped limping and now Zac walks as if nothing had happened.