A double arm transplant has transformed the life of a 53-year-old Mexican man, Gabriel Granados, who had had both limbs amputated just below the elbow after receiving a severe electrical shock. Last May he became the first patient in Latin America to undergo such operation.
Nearly 20 medics, including five plastic surgeons, five nurses and three anaesthetists, performed a marathon 17-hour operation to attach two arms donated by the family of a 34-year-old shooting victim.
A year has passed, and Mr. Granados speaks about the 'new lease of life' the operation has given him, and says he is extremely grateful to the donor's family.
Even a month after the operation, he told a news conference that the transplant was 'terrific' and that he has begun to feel his new hands. Before the surgery, doctors say they practiced the procedure on corpses.
Thanks to extensive rehabilitation, he has also recovered the majority of movement in his arms.
"This is wonderful that after being without hands for some time, all of a sudden I see new hands," said Mr Granados, who is an agent in the financial unit of Mexico City's prosecutors' office.
His arms were amputated after he received an electrical shock while giving instructions to a group of construction workers building a fence.
He said: "I was giving directions to the master masons to put a fence that was located precisely in an area where there were cables.
"When the accident happened, I was carrying a piece of rod that caused the electric shock that burned arms, arteries, nerves, vessels and bone."
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