A 19-year-old worker whose hand was ripped from his arm in an accident, but who managed to retrieve it, is recovering, a Chinese-language newspaper said on Sunday.
The Apple Daily reported that Yen Meng-ping (顏孟平), who works at a steel refinery, was cleaning train tracks at the plant on May 6 when an automated train rammed into him from behind, ripping off his left hand.
Yen bled profusely, but said the thought that “I cannot die ... if just for my grandparents” kept him going.
Yen knew how much his grandparents meant to him and he to them.
His parents divorced when he was young, and he was raised on the meager income of his grandmother scavenging and repairing fishing nets, and the retirement benefits of his grandfather, a military veteran.
Yen, who had been working part-time since his first year in high school, began working full-time in June last year. Every payday, he hands most of his monthly salary of NT$22,000 to his grandfather, leaving only a little for himself.
When the accident happened, Yen said that despite the excruciating pain, the thought of his grandparents gave him the strength to crawl 3m to retrieve the severed hand and call for help from his coworkers.
Yen was rushed to Kaohsiung Municipal Siaogang Hospital.
He underwent four major surgeries between May 6 and June 2, and received 12,000cc of blood transfusions before he was declared out of danger.
Doctors said Yen miraculously beat the 1 percent survival rate for his type of injury.
One of his doctors was Fu Yin-chih (傅尹志), the hospital’s vice superintendent, who is known for reattaching the severed left arm of Shoushan Zoo worker Chang Po-yu (張博宇), after it was bitten off by a crocodile.
Fu said Yen’s condition was much worse than Chang’s, because he also had a ruptured liver, as well as lung, liver and renal failure.
Yen nonetheless recovered well and checked out of the hospital on July 11 to begin a long and painful rehabilitation process, Fu said.
Last week, doctors found that he could move the fingers on the reattached hand a little and that he could also stand for a short time.
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