Plastic surgeon Anthony Echo marks areas to prepare for surgery to separate Frank Reyes' hand from his abdomen at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015. Reyes, whose hand was badly burned, spent three weeks with his left hand surgically tucked under a pocket of tissue in his belly to give it time to heal and form a new blood supply. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan) An 87-year-old Texas man had an unusual surgery to save a hand that was badly burned in an accident: Doctors sewed his hand to his belly and left it under a pocket of tissue for three weeks to give it time to heal and form a new blood supply.
Frank Reyes had a second operation Thursday at Houston Methodist Hospital to remove his hand, and doctors are hopeful he will regain the ability to do most tasks of everyday life.
Reyes' burn was too deep, down to the bones, to allow a traditional skin graft. Surgeries like his, temporarily attaching one body part to another, also are used on the battlefield, in trauma situations and in research as a way to incubate lab-grown body parts from scaffold-like materials.