Man avoids amputation after six-hour operation

A man has regained nearly full use of his hand after a thumb and finger were burnt to the bone in an electrical accident.

Technician Dan Thompson risked losing the thumb and index finger on his left hand following the shipyard mishap that burnt away most of the flesh at the end of the digits.

Thanks to delicate reconstructive surgery, however, the 44-year-old father of one is back at work with little more than scars to remind him of what happened.

Thompson, who comes from Connecticut in the United States, was working at a shipyard in Ajman in November when he grabbed what he thought was a disconnected wire.

Instead, it turned out to be live and the electric shock knocked him out and burnt the ends of his left forefinger and thumb down to the bone.

Thompson's surgeon, Dr Imran Tahir of The British Lasik & Cosmetic Surgery Centre in Dubai, said given the damage many doctors would have amputated the damaged fingers.

"Surgeons should think twice about amputating in cases like this. In the wrong hands, that's what could have happened," he said. "The thumb and forefinger are the most important part of the hand and the idea was to reconstruct them completely to look good and allow him to resume his normal job."

During a six-hour operation four days after the accident, Dr Tahir took a patch of skin from the back of Thompson's index finger and attached it to the front of his thumb to replace the damaged portion.

The veins, arteries and nerves were drawn under the skin across Thompson's hand to connect with the new location of the transferred patch of skin.

During the same operation at the American Hospital in Dubai a section of Thompson's middle finger was cut off and stitched to his index finger.

"It was very delicate surgery because they were very fine blood vessels and very fragile," Dr Tahir said.

It was fortunate Thompson was not a smoker or the blood vessels would have been less likely to have worked properly after the operation.

"Over the next year, the veins will regenerate and the slight swelling there is now will go down," Dr Tahir said.

Thompson, who lives in Dubai and works mostly at Jebel Ali, is back to doing his normal work, which includes inspecting tanks and climbing ladders.

The damaged fingers are heavily scarred but are of normal length and have regained most of their previous function. "I'm very pleased with how it is now. It could have been a lot worse," Thompson said.