Pune: A 30-year-old IT professional regained hope after doctors at Sahyadri Super Speciality Hospital Nagar Road successfully replanted his severed right thumb through a complex five-hour emergency microsurgery performed within four hours of a severe motorcycle-related accident.
The timely intervention restored blood flow to the thumb and significantly improved the chances of saving it despite the complexity of the injury.
The incident occurred while the patient was cleaning his motorcycle. The rear wheel suddenly rotated, trapping his right thumb in the spokes and severing it completely.
He was immediately rushed to Sahyadri Super Speciality Hospital Nagar Road, a network hospital of Manipal Hospitals, where surgeons assessed the injury and initiated emergency microsurgery within the critical time window for thumb replantation.
Doctors diagnosed the injury as a complex crush and rotational avulsion injury. The force of the accident had extensively damaged the blood vessels and nerves, making the procedure significantly more challenging than a routine thumb reattachment.
Since the thumb contributes nearly 40–50% of the hand’s overall function, immediate surgical intervention was essential to maximize the chances of restoring function and preserving hand mobility.
Speaking about the case, Dr. Sumit Saxena, Consultant Plastic, Reconstructive and Microvascular Surgeon, Sahyadri Super Specialty Hospital Nagar Road, Pune, a network hospital of Manipal Hospitals, said:
“The patient sustained a distal thumb amputation with a crush and rotational avulsion injury, making it significantly more complex than a routine thumb reimplantation. During the five-hour microsurgical procedure, we stabilised the bone, repaired the tendons and meticulously reconstructed the blood vessels and nerves under an operating microscope.
Since the arteries and veins had been avulsed and could not be repaired directly despite limited bone shortening, we harvested a vein graft from another part of the body to bridge the defect and restore blood circulation to the thumb.
Performing vein grafting at such a distal level, where the vessels are extremely small, is technically demanding and rarely required. Timely intervention played an important role in achieving a successful outcome.”
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The successful surgery at Sahyadri Super Speciality Hospital Nagar Road involved stabilizing the fractured bone, repairing tendons, and reconstructing damaged blood vessels and nerves using microsurgical techniques.
Due to the severity of the avulsion injury, surgeons at Sahyadri Super Speciality Hospital Nagar Road harvested a vein graft from another part of the patient’s body to bridge the damaged blood vessels and restore circulation to the thumb.
Vein grafting at such a distal level is considered technically demanding because of the extremely small size of the blood vessels involved.
According to a systematic review published in the Journal of Hand Surgery and available through the U.S. National Library of Medicine (PubMed Central), survival rates were significantly higher in clean-cut amputations (92%) compared with crush-cut injuries (80%) and crush-avulsion injuries (75%).
The reconstructive microsurgery team at Sahyadri Super Speciality Hospital Nagar Road manages approximately five to six thumb and finger reimplantation cases every year.
